Steph S.
Yelp
Driftwood's vibe feels like you're eating at the place in Adam Sandler's movie 50 First Dates. Hawaiian and beachy, you enter off Federal Highway and feel like you have been taken somewhere. It feels relaxed and welcoming without being overly kitschy. A 7 p.m. reservation was made on a Saturday night, and the place was filled and jamming by 7:30. You need a reservation. Cisco, our friendly waiter, was happy-go-lucky, but we had to catch him on the fly many times to place orders. They needed more help. He explained that Driftwood was all about local and fresh and that they were written up in the Palm Beach Post a while back, claiming them as one of the ten best in Palm Beach County. We were salivating, starved, and stoked.
The menu is eclectic and we couldn't make up our minds, so we ordered a bunch of dishes to share. We started with their milk bread, which is essentially warm, fresh rolls with 'everything' seasoning. There were two butter sides; one was whipped, the other whipped with harissa. I am not a fan of either; we wished they just made it simple with regular butter. We then got sweet and sour cauliflower (a standout) which was deftly fried with a sticky tangy sauce; fish and chips which came with a nice, homemade tarter sauce and a bit of pickled vegetables over a potato "chip". The potato thing showed up again in a brined and grilled (sous vide and smoked?) chicken breast with a mornay sauce (we had it on the side, but it was tasteless, and the chicken was spongy), and we all agreed the potato thing was a greasy cross between a knish and a latke. It did not work for us, but they are proud of that dish, as you can tell from Cisco's description. Ultra-crispy tempura string beans with aioli was a particularly unappealing-looking hot mess of a dish but delicious nonetheless. Dry-brined chicken wings were tender and juicy, but the dusting of seasoning felt odd in our mouths. Shrimp and grits had some funky red swirl of sauce, which ruined the dish for us, and their "forever staying on their menu" chicken and dumplings was a fail for us, as the chicken, while there, seemed non-existent and the dumplings undercooked. The oddest part of the whole meal was the french fries, which, take it from me, were the frozen kind that you buy in the supermarket. Why? Why go through all that trouble to explain yourself as a fresh, local food spot and have frozen fries?
The drinks menu was vast and geared toward fruity rum drinks. I had a beer, and my friend had a hurricane that did not taste like the New Orleans variety but a lemony, tangy cocktail. The straws were metal, which was cute.
Our party decided that Driftwood tried too hard to be different. While the food was okay and sounded exciting, no one dish would drive us back. The dessert menu was strange, so we went to Carvel afterward.