SeaCow Eatery - Edisto Beach, SC

We had ridden by the SeaCow Eatery several times before my wife mentioned she would like to go there for lunch one day. I hadn't noticed it at all. It's on the West side of Jungle Road on Edisto Beach SC.

When we arrived, I was a little confused as to where the door is to enter. My wife saw the sign that pointed left, towards the marsh and away from the road, but I didn't see it, so I went right. Wrong.

On entering, we observed the 'wait to be seated' sign, so we stood at the counter for a while before a large African-American waitress told us to follow her. She got the menus and led us to a table. When we got there, she noted it hadn't been cleaned up. She said something to a white woman about it not being clean. The white woman turned around to go back and get a cloth to wipe down the table. Meanwhile the African-American waitress proceeded to start bitching while looking at us. We felt like she was bitching at us, but this didn't make any sense, so we just ignored it. She walked off, with the menus, leaving us standing there. Soon the white woman returned, and wiped down our table and left. We sat down, but without any menus. My wife, who had been standing behind me, wanted to know what the waitress was bitching at me, what had I said? I told her I didn't think she was bitching at me, but wasn't really sure.

After a while, the African-American waitress returned to take our order. We told her we didn't have any menus yet, so we didn't know what we wanted. She turned all the way around, said something to the white waitress, then turned back to use, started bitching at us again, then turned around and walked away! She's the same one I said earlier took the menus away when she left, and now she's pissed off that we aren't ready to order!

The white waitress came back to us and took our order. She also brought our order back to us when it was ready. Then she disappeared.

At some point I needed a refill on my tea. After a while had gone by without anyone else coming by to refresh my drink, I got up and went and stood at the counter holding my drink. Finally the African-American waitress asked what I wanted. I said I needed a refill on my tea. She grabbed a clean glass, reached into the ice bin with her bare hands holding the cup so her hands were into the ice(!), filled it up with ice, poured the tea into it, and was in the process of handing it to me when she saw I was holding my cup. She grabbed the cup I was holding, and instead of just swapping cups with me, she proceeded to dump the ice out of my cup, then pour the tea and ice from the cup she had just refilled into the cup I had been holding.

Seems a bit goofy, but whatever.

We finished our meal. No one appeared to give us our check. At no time did anyone ever come back by to see if we needed anything.

After a long wait, we went up to the counter to pay. The African-American waitress looked at me, and asked me where I would like to sit. I told her we had already eaten an were wanting to pay. She asked where I had been sitting, and I pointed it out to her - it was the same place she had told us to sit, and had been to it twice, but whatever.

When she realized we didn't have the check, she turned and looked at the white waitress, started bitching (I never could understand what she was saying - it was all under her breath, angry sounding stuff).

And that's how we were greeted, served and disposed of.

Food was just OK, nothing worth returning for for us.

Service was bad, attitudes of wait staff was worse than bad.

Not somewhere I would ever go back to.

Edisto Beach - Dock Side Restaurant

Our first night on Edisto, Wednesday March 23rd, we went to the Dock Side Restaurant.

This is located on the South West corner of the island, across from the entrance to the Wyndham Resort.

We were given two seats next to the windows overlooking the river and marsh.

We both got the seafood platters. I opted for the larger platter, the Captain's Platter (about $22), while my wife had the regular seafood platter (about $21). This came with a trip to the salad bar, and a fish stew.

We thought everything was OK, but no more than that. For the price, we felt it was a little high, certainly more than we would have paid in Charleston at a restaurant of similar decor and surroundings.

The service was OK too.

So, overall, in our opinion, just OK, and we looked forward to finding something a little more interesting and possibly better, at a better price.

I'm not sure the price isn't warranted, because restaurants on islands like this only have 3 - 5 months to make enough sales to carry them through the whole year, so it may be a fair price, but felt high to us.

How to Cook Shrimp

Here's the cocktail sauce we like to serve with our shrimp!

Buy 1 pound of fresh shrimp, which is about right for 2 people for a meal primarily of shrimp. We prefer ours with the heads off. If fresh, they should be gray in color; they start turning orange as they lose their freshness.

Get a colander and try it out in several of your tall pots. You want a colander/pot combination that will let your colander sit in the pot, suspended by the handles on the colander, inside the pot, without touching the bottom of your pot. You want a lid that will drop down onto the colander. It doesn't have to be too snug. You can also buy these enameled pots with lift-out strainer at the grocery stores

The idea here is that you will be boiling water in the bottom of the pot, which will be producing steam, but you don't want the water to rise up to the shrimp. It's OK for froth to rise up, but you are wanting to steam the shrimp, not boil them.

Pour the water into the colander. You don't want them to be crowded, as you want the steam to be able to work its way through them. We are able to cook 1 pound this way at a time, without over crowding them.

Keep the lid on until you see some steam coming out around the lid. Periodically lift the lid to see the shrimp. Using a long cooking spoon or ladle, stir the shrimp, so that all of the shrimp will get exposed to the steam.

Continue to periodically stir while steaming the shrimp, until all of the shrimp are a uniform orangish color - any gray means that shrimp is undercooked.

Pour onto a serving platter, pull off the shells, dip in the sauce, and eat!

Tip on taking the shell off: Pinch the shell at the first joint about the tail and pull, while with other hand hold at the bottom of the 2nd shell joint. This will remove 2/3 of the shell in one single stroke. Now remove the legs and shell in an easy twisting motion.