USA

I kept it domestic this weekend and decided to visit a place I’ve been meaning to check out since I moved up here from Augusta. Captain Steve’s.  As the name and the post title suggest this is a seafood restaurant although they have steak, chicken and pork as well.  I had seafood on my mind however so I thought I’d give them a shot.

When I moved to Fort Mill the parking lot, which is huge, was gravel and dirt and the exterior had the look of a fish camp.  One of those places that has a ton of seating in an open area with lots of plain tables and chairs designed not to be too comfortable because they have a high volume of people to serve on any given weekend.  That’s what I imagined anyway passing it countless times without ever going in.  Over the years they’ve obviously been successful and the parking lot has been paved and the exterior got a facelift and based on what I saw I’d say the interior got a boost as well.

The parking lot was about half full when I arrived and I was seated immediately.  They do have efficiency in mind because they have two lanes for you to get seated, one for parties of 4 and under and one for larger parties.  Being Sunday after noon the attire of the crowd was everything from me in my shorts and t-shirt to the guy in the 3 piece suit and family all dressed in their Sunday best at the table next to me.  As you can see from the menu they’ve got a pretty good selection so it is a place you can bring just about anyone.

Going against my southern DNA I decided to get broiled instead of fried and chose the 2 item Create a Platter with the Greek style flounder and sea scallops.  As a side note here my server was a very pleasant young lady who’s name I didn’t get but I liked that when I asked a couple of question she didn’t know the answer too she admitted it and offered to let me try an item or she could ask someone else.  The question she did know the answer to, “What’s Greek style?”, she led with “Do you like feta?” and when I said yes she completed the rest of the ingredients.  She only checked in a few times but they were are the right times and my tea didn’t get empty and I didn’t have to wait long when I was ready for the check.  Ok, back to the food.  The platter came with a house salad and side which I elected to be potato salad.  Along with the salad, which could have been a meal by itself, a basket of hushpuppies was served up.

A nice thing about a place that’s really busy is you can count on the stuff being fresh and this salad tasted fresh and I’m not even really a salad person.  I tried a couple of the hushpuppies and they were decent as well.  Then came the seafood.

The flounder fillet had feta, tomatoes, celery, onions, carrots and herbs, all finely chopped, on top and the generous portion was cooked just right.  The flounder had mild fish taste as you’d expect  and the feta was in fact the strongest flavor in the mix.  The potato salad was ok but I only ate a couple of bites because I had to prioritize at this point and the scallops were going to be priority one.  The scallops were about the best I’ve had in a long time.  They were tender and had a great scallop taste a subtle salt flavor like they were just pulled from the sea unlike at many places where they are rubbery and almost tasteless.  I’m not sure what seasoning they used on them and at first I was afraid it might overpower the scallop taste but it didn’t.  I finished the scallops and most of the flounder but I could not clean my plate today.

So lessons learned, either don’t eat the salad or go for a one item platter otherwise something gets left behind.  I definitely will be going back to Captain Steve’s and trying something fried just to keep things in balance.