Notes from the Beach
During a week at the beach, I got a lot of sun, swam a lot in the ocean and ate a whole lot of mediocre restaurant food.
OK, so I did have a couple of good dishes, and I did have great seafood boil that I cooked myself.
But once again I found beach restaurants underwhelming, to put it tactfully.
Here are a few observations:
I do not at all mind the proliferation of shrimp and grits on every menu of seafood restaurants. I think it’s a great dish.
It’s also a very simple dish, but, as with any simple dish, the devil is in the details.
Please, chefs and cooks, make the best grits you can, the creamy (but creamless) slow-cooked kind.
And please do not put cheese in the grits or on the shrimp.
And do not make a sauce, especially a cream sauce, to go over the shrimp and grits.
Cream and cheese are too heavy for the dish.
This dish should be lightly sauteed shrimp with a select ingredients, such as scallions, garlic, mushrooms and maybe bacon. The juices and butter from the sauteing make plenty of sauce to pool on and around the grits.
Most every restaurant steams seafood well. You usually can’t go wrong with steamed clams, shrimp or the like.
Do not serve steamed seafood with either melted margarine or clarified butter. Whole melted butter is by far the better choice. Oh, and don’t forget a wedge of fresh lemon.
Of all the seafood offered at N.C. beach communities, the shrimp is mostly likely to be freshest because it’s most likely to be local.
