The shore’s not necessarily a good place to get seafood

We spent last week in North Myrtle Beach. It was so delightful! We rented a condo and sat in the sun and had cocktails and hung out with the kids. And we ate. But what we had hoped for (and did not get) was some really great seafood. We knew not to go to the Calabash buffets or really any of the cattle-chute type places. We were prepared to pay a little more for the good stuff. We weren’t, however, up for spending an hour in the car driving to Murrell’s or Pawley’s. So that left us with few options.

I had done my research on the “South” board of chowhound.com. A place called Marina Raw Bar was recommended. We located it, sat down in the sparsely populated dining room/deck, and placed our drink order. At that point we asked the waitress what was good tonight. She said, “I don’t think anything is good. I don’t eat seafood. And don’t ask for lobster because we’re out.” O.K. We took in the pained expressions on the faces of the other patrons, and made our exit.

We only went a couple of blocks down the street and found a really good restaurant, but the one person who ordered seafood (me) was disappointed. It was Grouper Parmesan (really only one of a few choices and highly recommended by the waitress). This was really a slab of melted parmesan on some thin grouper that really could have been any fish for all you could tell what it was.

We tried a couple more times…again, willing to spend what it took, but the steak entrees consistently out-pleased the fish entrees. So the moral of the story is, unless you go to a fishing town, stay away from the seafood. Get your seafood here in Atlanta. The best grouper I’ve ever had in my life was at Oscar’s Villa Capri in Dunwoody. Just be on the alert of a mob hit…it’s that kind of ambience.

I do remember when the kids were little and we lived in Greenville, NC. We used to make the 1-hour drive to the beach on Saturdays, swim all day, then go to the docks and pick up still-squirming shrimp to fry up for dinner. Yum.

Wine review

We’ve been trying a lot of new wines and need to keep track of the ones we like, so I’m going to start blogging about them.

Last week we had Julianne and Tanner over for dinner, so we opened a Nora Albarino and a Posenato Costa Lunga (Soave Classico) to compare. Everybody liked both wines very well. The Nora was spicier and more crisp, while the Posenato was smoother and more delicate, without having the sort of sweetish, sticky mouthfeel I often associate with “smooth” wines. I’d buy either again. The Nora was about $15. I’m not sure about the Posenato because it was a Winestyles selection of the month in recent months. If you are Winestyles members, one benefit is a monthly selection of a couple of bottles of wine. Winestyles is gimmicky, but between the tastings and monthly selection, we are learning more about what we do and do not like. Additionally, you’re almost forced to articulate what that means to you, as you try the different wines at the tastings. Most of the monthly selections have been great, but there have been a couple of ringers, such as the extremely sweet champagne we opened on July 4th for fireworks. We didn’t even drink it!

 A great example of a type of wine we probably would never have tried on our own is Albarino. In addition to being featured in a tasting, there was an Albarino in a recent monthly selection. I haven’t tried one yet that I disliked. I believe we had a Martin Codax and really enjoyed it.

I will try to blog our opinions when we try new wines in the future.