Christian F.
Yelp
Been using Yelp a long time to find new restaurants, don't usually leave reviews, but I feel compelled to do so now, after my meal last night.
Took my daughter to St Michael's just for a last Summer overnight getaway before school starts. Spent about 20 mins reviewing Yelp reviews of restaurants in the area, and thought we had a winner. Seated at an excellent table outside right on edge of dock with great water views - this was 730p or so on a Saturday night. Couldn't be happier at this point - then the food started coming out. I ordered the ceviche to start. The only seafood in it was shrimp, no problem, right? It was those little shrimp, about 1/2 inch long at most, and little shrimp pieces. The most inexpensive shrimp one can buy, imported from China, and sold in a bag or frozen brick. I've never bought it but I've seen it. It has a bland, almost soapy dishwater flavor. But these shrimp only made up 20% of the ceviche, at most. The other main ingredient was diced tomatoes (approx 60%), onion, etc, citrus juice... the juice itself was flavorful. While now looking at the menu, I asked about the "fresh catch," hoping for some fresh native Rockfish or something. The waitress told me it was a pasta dish with some seafood and sausage. Ok, never heard of that, but fine. I ordered the shrimp and grits, and my daughter, the shrimp salad sandwich with Old Bay mixed in the mayo based spread the shrimp were tossed in... I forget the wording on the menu. Guess what, same little bland Chinese shrimp and bits as my ceviche, in her sandwich. On a very cheap hot dog roll, not a potato roll or anything, with a piece of lettuce. But I noticed my daughter not eating. She said it wasn't very good, so I tried it. It had the blandest flavor of any shrimp salad I'd ever had. I believe it was mayo mixed with some kind of cheap Old Bay substitue. But no salt, no pepper, no lemon juice, garlic, etc, to give it a bit of flavor. It was terrible. She said her fries were pretty good, and I gave her some of my shrimp and grits.
My shrimp and grits were bland too. I order it a lot, and it was the worst I'd ever had. But it did have a moderate amount of Gulf shrimp, I believe. To drink, I ordered an orange crush. Very sweet from the triple sec, but very much lacking any kick of vodka. Normally, I'd just have one in this case, but it tasted so watered down, I ordered a second. About the same. I don't mind paying $11.00 for a drink at a dock bar in the summer, I think its the going rate nowadays. But at least give me a decent drink. My daughter had a diet soda. That's all we had, with tip, bill was $108.00.
The female waitress was attentive. Overall, very disappointed.