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Ate: September 29, 2006 Published: October 1, 2006 $$ We had seen the feature write-up on the front page of the Dining section of the Sun News. We had seen their commercials on local TV. They promised authentic Mexican, Latin and Caribbean flavors. My wife and I looked at each other and thought, "Sounds good, let's check 'em out.." So last night, we drove south to Pawleys Island to dine at La Playa Mexican & Latin Restaurant Cantina. When we were welcomed by the hostess, she took the time to not only tell us about the evening's special, but to also direct our attention to a model place setting with the special served up. It looked delicious. The restaurant this evening was already starting to fill up with customers. There was a live guitar-playing singer and a bustling, attentive staff. La Playa is in the business of creating good nights out and they were already hard at work. The opening chips and salsa didn't do a whole lot for us. The salsa was spicy, but with a black pepper taste instead of the usual hot peppers we normally find. It was very thin and drippy with very few vegetable bits. We don't know whether or not this is the more "authentic" version of salsa, but we know that we prefer our salsa the way most other places serve it. But salsa alone does not a meal make, and we were looking forward to our main courses. La Playa's menu is broad enough that we decided to experiment and not stick with the more common Mexican restaurant fare. The menu description of the Enchiladas a la Crema was seductive enough to entice my wife, and they arrived covered in a thick white sour cream sauce. It looked appetizing, but it apparently didn't have a whole lot of zing to it. The enchiladas, the beans, the rice - it was all somewhat bland, with very few spices. Even the sauce appeared to be little more than just sour cream spread across the enchiladas. I'd also experimented a bit and ordered a Venezuelan dish called El Pabellon Criollo. I got a lot of shredded beef and strips of bell pepper and onion. Basically, it was fajitas with shredded beef instead of strips of flank steak. Unfortunately, I came to the same conclusion as my wife. There was very little spice or zing in my dinner. It was well cooked and well presented, just not full of flavor. My bride has a strong family heritage from the island of Barbados, including a lot of wonderful Caribbean cuisine. We were expecting something similar from La Playa. Unfortunately, we didn't find what we were looking for. We had a nice time in a restaurant full of friendly staff, but the food wasn't anything that would make us want to go back. |
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