A Tale Of Two Turkey Dinners

For reasons I'm still trying to sort out, we found ourselves on a thousand mile road trip to Savannah for Thanksgiving to eat the fried goodness of Paula Deen. Along the way we picked up our son in Atlanta who has learned were all the good food is made. So before we hit the road again, we stopped at a trendy burger place in Atlanta. Here is how the two stack up against each other.

Restaurant	The Lady And Sons	Flip Burger
The Sign
Location	Savannah In the historic district near the waterfront.	Atlanta In the industrial Howell Mill area.
Cooking Show Connection	Paula Deen is a Southern style fixture on the Food Network with a bevy of shows. Her two sons also have their own travel style show.	Top Chef Season Three runner-up Richard Blais is a 'consultant' to the restaurant.
Decor	Southern antebellum as designed by DisneyWorld. You enter through the gift shop and are assaulted by about everything Paula Deen related. I bought a kitchen towel with her macaroni and cheese recipe on it. The restaurant is three floors tall with the main dining room on the top floor.	A hip trendy night club with lots of neon and dim track lighting. In keeping with the 'flip' theme, all the tables and booths are mirrored on the ceiling.
Reservations	Only taken for holidays, which is part of why we went. Normally only same-day times are available starting at 9:30 am, so getting good time is hit or miss.	None. First come, first serve. There is usually a line and they do a lot of take-out business.
The Food	For Thanksgiving dinner they had a buffet with the requisite turkey and ham, but there was also plenty of fried chicken. All the southern style sides were there as well, including mac and cheese, green beans, creamed corn, succotash and the like.	The special Thanksgiving burger was a turkey patty topped with cranberry sauce, green beans, and fried onions. For dessert I got a pumpkin pie milkshake.
Verdict	Paula Deen is force of nature and her high volume tourist trap moves the people through. Still, the comfort food is well cooked and free of the extremes found in kitschy	The burgers are all cleverly designed with unique ingredients. The side dishes are varied and tend towards the trendy
Will I Return?	Probably. I would like to eat off the regular menu. What is the point of going to Savannah if you can't put some South in your Mouth.	Most definitely. The burgers are great, reasonably priced, and very convenient to the Georgia Tech campus.