|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ate: October 12, 2005 Published: October 16, 2005 $$$ This week, my lovely bride and I decided to break out of our routine and take a drive up King's Highway (Highway 17 Business) to see what looked interesting. As locals, we usually don't hit King's Highway unless we have a reason to, so we are actually not as familiar with it than we should be. This gave us an opportunity to act like tourists and pick a place based on whatever strikes our mood at the moment. The first thing that we noticed was just how many chains there are on Myrtle Beach's main drag. We're trying to focus on what makes Myrtle Beach unique and keep our reviews of chains to a minimum. A few places stuck out at us as we drove north and, after a brief discussion, decided that the Flamingo Grill might be a good place to eat. Neither one of us knew anything about the place - it just had a smooth, classy look to it. We found that the inside décor of the Flamingo Grill matched its outside décor. There was a lot of neon, a lot of black-and-white, and a decidedly retro, hip atmosphere. Situated close to the upscale Pine Lakes subdivision, this restaurant caters to an equally upscale clientele. But whereas the Divine Fish House was quiet and understated in its elegance, the Flamingo Grill is much more bold and in your face with its not-quite over the top decor. I'm sad to report that when the waitress came to take our drink order, a small part of southern culture died. Apparently, the Flamingo Grill does not serve sweet iced tea. In the past few years, things had already shifted to the point that you had to request sweet tea at most restaurants anymore. To find a place that doesn't serve it at all made us both nostalgic for the "good ol' days." I think that the best description of our waitress would be capable but uninspired. She didn't tell us anything about the evening's specials or go out of her way to be overly friendly, but she did take our orders and bring us our drinks with a smile. The busy summer tourist season is over and we could tell that she was operating on autopilot this night. Both of our entrees came with salads, which arrived after only a short wait. To a large degree, the salad was fairly generic, but with two notable exceptions. The first exception was the inclusion of some very sweet and juicy grape tomatoes. The second was that they did not skimp on the dressing. So far, we were in good spirits, looking forward to continuing what was shaping up to be an enjoyable, if not necessarily memorable experience. It wasn't very crowded this evening, so our main courses arrived promptly shortly after we had finished our salads. My wife got the chicken marsala, a grilled chicken breast served in a marsala wine sauce. According to her, it was pretty good, with the chicken breast nice and juicy and the wine sauce flavorful. However, to hear her describe it, her chicken was much like our waitress, good but not particularly outstanding. "It's not something I would go back for," were her exact words. I had ordered a house cut of prime rib, which is a twelve-ounce portion. I had probably underestimated how much I thought it would be, because that was one big hunk of beef sitting there on my plate. The first thing that I noticed was a dry spice rub on its outside rim. According to our waitress, it consisted of black pepper and garlic powder. It added plenty of flavor and zest to an otherwise bland cut of beef. Around the edges, bites of prime rib with the spices were excellent, but pieces from the interior of the portion proved to be juicy but not otherwise very flavorful. Both of our entrees were served with redskin potatoes and sugar snap peas. The potatoes were not good at all. They were very bland, with little flavor to speak of and believe me, the less spoken about them, the better. Sugar snap peas were something that stood out, because it is a side dish that you don't see very often. My wife was not happy with them, only because she does not like green peas. I'd never tried sugar snap peas before, but it turns out that I like them. They were well prepared, fresh and still a little al dente, but I'm sorry to say that they weren't enough to rescue an otherwise very forgettable meal. After a meal that didn't particularly intrigue us, we weren't worried about dessert and just had our competent, polite waitress bring us the bill. As we were leaving, we picked up one of their paper, take-out menus of the type that are found in a lot of the hotel rooms and rental condominiums around here. As we were driving home, my bride was reading it and started asking me about the prices on the menus at the restaurant. It turns out that the prices on the menus in the restaurant were $2.00 higher than on the older take-out menus. Two dollars per person isn't much, but it shows a lazy effort to pawn off old menus instead of printing new ones after the prices changed. That final straw represented to us an inconsistency that summed up our dining experience at the Flamingo Grill. For all of the décor and the atmosphere, the whole restaurant seemed to be on autopilot. It never really lived up to the promises that were made when we walked in. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright ©2010 ReviewMyrtleBeach.com |
| Want Us To Review A Particular Restaurant? Just Click Here And Ask |
 Our RSS Feed |