Regina S.
Yelp
We were so excited to see a new restaurant open up on Lady's Island. The place is small and the main focal point is the open kitchen. A fun concept, but the view from the bar stools was kind of sad. It was quite a bare bones prep and cook area. Nothing attractive about it. By all means, though, not a deal breaker. Folks can sit at the handful of tables or even eat outside in the courtyard.
The service was pleasant and courteous but if pressed for time, it may not be the ideal lunch place. We waited over a half hour for a sandwich and fried shrimp. Not sure if they had a lot of to go orders or what, as the restaurant was not crowded yet the line cook kept cranking out the days special - lobster grilled cheese. Even when our order was finally called out, nothing was started immediately. Thankfully, we had the time. When our food was served, I noticed that the kitchen cut the local shrimp in a way that stopped them from curling so they kind of resembled the French fries. Curl or no curl, local fresh shrimp was what we were craving so the shape was inconsequential in the end. Unfortunately, though, there was too much not particularly tasty breading, which masked the flavor of the delicate shrimp. Another shortcoming was the heavy hand with the salt which robbed the taste buds of any sweetness from the crustaceans. A dunk in the cocktail sauce didn't help. We prefer a predominant horseradish punch not a sugar one. Considering this is a Japanese style eatery, I expected the shrimp to be prepared in more of a tempura style, with a light and shatteringly crispy crust. The house made fries were very good, dark, crunchy, with lots of potato flavor. The big cuts of cabbage in the coleslaw were a bit hard to eat. The slaw was very creamy but had a predominant taste of sesame oil. It needed more zing. The $26 price tag was too steep for the lobster roll, as it just didn't have enough meat to deliver the quintessential experience of indulging in big chunks of tail, often whole claw meat, and knuckle. We lived in New England and traveled the area extensively. Lobster rolls were everywhere, even McDonald's offered its own version. Locals' roll had good, fresh lemony flavor, but it ate wet which caused puddling on the plate and made the uncharacteristically not buttered bun get a bit mushy. My husband and I split the sandwich and I still left some bread on the plate because it was void of any filling. The sandwich was accompanied by a small Caesar salad which was well dressed, and was sprinkled with rice pearls. I'm all for anchovies in the dressing, but this just had too much of a fish forward flavor. The beauty of this salad is the flavor that results in the sum of its parts - all the ingredients working together, without one blasting out another. I just didn't care for Local's Raw Bar's version of this preparation.
Even with the shortcomings we experienced during our visit, we won't hesitate to go back and give it another go. Maybe we chose the wrong items, maybe the staff had an off day, maybe it all came down to personal preference with our meals. Hard to tell. We were asked how are food was several times, and my answer was "good". Which was honest. I wasn't about to bring up the particulars I listed here of course, because again, it could have just been our personal taste preferences.
