Uptown, baby. Uptown. Walk inside Pican and you see modern sturdy glamour and your grandmother’s house in Savannah. They have a pretty slick bar and a nice cocktail book. I had a mini mint julep and made eye contact with people as I drank it.

Our waitress was a certified hustler. Every recommendation she made, everything Pican does well apparently was also the most expensive thing in its place on the menu. She was cute, though, and not annoying so I tipped her $20 on $87.

The smoked gouda mac and cheese was good like mac and cheese always is but too rich. 2 bites was plenty. The collard greens looked and tasted like they had been taking a ham hock bath for the past 20 hours. The jalapeno corn bread was flaky and firm and spicy and buttery. I didn’t get the grilled pork chop b/c it came with pork belly and I think it’s time restaurants took a step back from pork belly. The seared flounder with clams, chorizo, toasted hominy and pickled radish in a light fishstock broth was a plate of good. The black-eyed pea cakes were creative and complex.

The fried chicken was good, too. In no way worth $25 but good.

But I digress.

First, a disclaimer: this review was conducted sober, which is an automatic red flag b/c I’m pretty sure The Smokehouse exists only to serve the intoxicated. If they had a sub-title on their big red sign it would probably say: Feel Free to Come Here After 7 Beers & a Bowl.

I’ve always respected their scam of charging $.30 more for lettuce and tomatos and mayo and calling that option “deluxe.” Game recognize game, from one hustler to another, so I always go for the deluxe cheeseburger even though I think mayo is disgusting. One of the things they used to have going was their prices: a cheeseburger was $2.10 and fries were a dollar and they kept these prices for at least a decade. But things’ve changed. It cost me $7 for a burger and fries and that’s not going to work. I’d almost rather go to the nasty Jack in the Box a block down the street. Almost. The burger itself was, as always, too thin and small for the bun and obviously recently thawed. Their fries are always solid.

I’m too old to stay up late acting crazy these days but I may have to come out of retirement and take my ‘96 Mazda Protege with no hubcaps (I’m not too old to have that as my car but that’s another story) down Telegraph and stop here one more time. Get that late-night drunken dining experience with the other degenerates, enjoy a decent burger and fries and then never go again. This place is better enjoyed as a memory.