As a quick aside, the day after we got home, the South Carolina governor ordered an evacuation of the entire SC coastal region. Our son and his wife and our grandson left Thursday and our good friends at Callawassie Island all appear to be safe now too. We are very happy they are all out of harm's way, but now we are hoping and praying that they won't have major property damage.
While in SC we ate almost all of our meals out and we went on a seafood binge. The shrimp, flounder, and oysters were all fresh, although the oysters won't be local for a month or two. On Saturday I had a Shrimp Po Boy for lunch and a seafood platter for dinner. The seafood platter was all local and had shrimp, whiting and fish cakes, and some hush puppies of course. All the fish was local and delicious. The shrimp in the lunch Po Boy were cooked perfectly. Not overcooking is always the key with shrimp and they should pop when you bite into them.
Sunday morning we had a delicious brunch at our kids house and then for Sunday evening we went to the Callawassie Island club, where I had fish and chips. Monday we spent most of the day on Hilton Head and had lunch at the Boat House, a delightful seaside restaurant that has been there for years. I started lunch with a really nice seafood chowder, that had clams, shrimp and fish in a thick cream base.
The chowder was followed by a flounder almondine. It was a local flounder fillet that was dipped in an egg batter and sauteed. It was topped with a brown butter sauce and toasted almonds. I wasn't crazy about the egg batter. I thought it overpowered the fish and made it taste a little like french toast, but I certainly didn't send it back.
Jan had a fried oyster Po Boy, that she loved. Hard to see the oysters in the picture but they had a very light breading and were fried to perfection. The sandwich was accompanied by really good waffle cut sweet potato fries.
Monday evening we went to the May River Grill in Bluffton with some good friends. Jan and I both had crispy scored flounder. This is a low country specialty. The flounder is cross hatched with scoring down to the bones. It is then flash fried in a big skillet, just enough to make the skin crisp. Typically it is then topped with a sauce of some sort and finished off in the oven. In this case the sauce was a Thai red chili sauce. A more common example is finished with an apricot sauce. No matter the sauce, the result is always delicious. Each little piece, defined by the scoring, lifts off of the bones easily and makes a tasty bite with a crisp outer layer over the top of the moist and tender flesh of the flounder. It doesn't get much better than that. If you are ever in the low country be sure to try the crisp scored flounder. I think the best I have ever had was at the Old Pink House in Savannah.
We get good seafood in Kansas City. It is flown in daily, but it just isn't quite the same as when you can sit in a restaurant and see the shrimp boats offshore and know that in a few hours their catch will be on a local plate.
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