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Ate: March 11, 2006 Published: March 12, 2006 $$$ For the last several weeks, we have written nothing but very good reviews, some of them absolutely glowing even. I can't exactly say that either of us has complained, because it means that we've enjoyed some good meals. We knew that it would come to an end at some point. The waiting is now over. Sometimes, we have a destination in mind, but this evening we just knew we wanted to head down to Pawleys Island. Our last experience in Pawleys Island wasn't that great and we were looking forward to giving the area another chance. We ended up a block off of the highway at a tiny little place called Orobosas Lowcountry Café. From the outside, it looked like a little shack and was painted in extremely bright colors. My wife compared it to rum shacks she remembers seeing in Barbados. But hey, the little places are what we're all about, so we went in. The inside of the place was no fancier than the outside. With the cheap tables and the plastic red-checked tablecloths, the two of us assumed that Orobosas was going to be a classic low country fried seafood joint of the type that is becoming harder and harder to find. When the waitress escorted us out to the porch that is still being converted into a second dining room, we were looking forward to a beautiful early spring evening with fried seafood and hush puppies. Once we opened the menu, all of our expectations were shattered. The prices were, in our opinion at least, quite high. We have eaten at several nice restaurants along the beach, and we've even reviewed a few of them. Orobosas prices were in line with the prices at those places. However, at none of those other places have we been seated in cheap plastic lawn furniture on a half-converted deck. In addition, those other restaurants either treated us to spectacular waterfront views or sealed us off from the highway and traffic, wrapping us up in a fun, luxurious atmosphere. At Orobosas, my wife was graced with a view of the parking lot and Causeway Road. I was just as lucky, because my view was the parking lot of the Walgreen's next door. I'm sorry, you can call me an uncultured philistine, but if a bowl of soup costs $6.50, the average entrée costs more than $20 and the evening's special costs $30, I expect a lot more atmosphere than Orobosa's provided. Oh well, the food must be absolutely wonderful, right? The waitress brought us some fried corncakes that they called "blini." I had to admit they were very good, the blini was a very acceptable upscale replacement for hush puppies. Unfortunately, the blini represented the high point of our dinner. Other than consisting completely of greens that we could not identify, our salads and the salad dressing was nothing memorable. That is, unless you count the hair my wife found in hers. My bride had ordered the chicken in their signature Waga Waga sauce. I tried a few bites and she and I agreed. It was good, but not $17 good. My favorite part of her dinner was the artichoke hearts; they did have a nice, fresh flavor that carried the dish. The menu had mentioned garlic mashed potatoes as the side, but neither of us could taste the garlic in them. Her potatoes were okay, but they lacked much of the seasoning that the two of us generally like in our food. My own dish was the salmon with basil pasta in a lobster tarragon sauce. The salmon was a good piece of fish and was well grilled, but is didn't stand out to me as being especially creative or original. The sauce over the pasta was also average, not something that I'll particularly remember. Everything is all about expectations. Based on the price, we expected certain things. In our opinion, those expectations were not met. As you've probably noticed, we use words like "good" and "okay" for our dinner. Compared to our expectations, "good" and "okay" are not an acceptable description. Everything was just. . . average. We left Orobosas poorer, but hopefully a little wiser. We had second thoughts after we opened the menu, now we know our first instincts were right. Next time, we'll probably listen to them. |
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