The Oyster Rock Waterfront Seafood — Restaurant in Calabash

Let me start by qualifying my two star review of the service. This is only pertainting to the bar. I have been there a total of four times. I have bragged that this is the best food in a fifty mile radius. Twice I have sat in the restaurant and twice I have sat in the bar. I am partial to bar seating because it is less formal. The two times that I have sat in the restaurant, my service was well above five stars. Simply outstanding. It doesn't seem fair that I am giving two stars for the service, when it only applies to the bar. I am only trying to make a point. While this remains one of my favorite restaurants, I will never again sit in the bar. It goes without saying that service at a table would be better than the bar. So let me explain my latest bar experience. We were the first seated at the bar and the last to be waited on. Therefore my food came well after everyone else who was seated after me. When the bartender took my order, I could tell that they weren't paying attention. I ordered an appetizer, a premium salad and an entree. The bartender said balsamic on the salad? I said no, this salad is the ginger salad. Not a house salad. Appetizer arrives in about ten minutes. Reasonable amount of time. Twenty minutes goes by and no salad. I thought to myself, they are just busy. Give them the benefit of the doubt. In another five minutes the entree arrives. I asked the server what about the salad. Again I knew the bartender was not invested in my order. The server said the usual...let me check on it. The server came back and said that it would be right up. I said they forgot it didn't they? Server said yes. Five minutes later the salad arrives. Meanwhile I am in the middle of my steak. Otherwise it would have gotten cold waiting on the salad. I told the server that at this point they could just box it up because I was not going to stop eating my steak and let it get cold. Server took it to the kitchen and came back with it boxed up. I paid my bill and tipped normally despite the circus with the salad. Decided today to eat my salad for lunch. Opened it up to find a house salad, not the premium ginger salad that I ordered. Guess what type of dressing? Balsamic. The bartender had a preconceived notion that I wanted a house salad with balsamic. Even though I said it twice and literally pointed to in on the menu. I must say the ginger salad is one of the best salads I've ever had. That's what makes it all the more disappointing. No acknowledgment of any kind from the server or bartender. Just pay and move on so someone else can have the seat. I held this restaurant in very high regard. As for the restaurant side, I still do. This is the sort of treatment I would expect from a much lesser business. Oyster Rock I would expect to be better than that. Especially when I am...

Growing up, I worked at a fishmarket and seafood restaurant for 13 years.

I had the stuffed flounder last night. Which was recommended by the server. Stuffed flounder is normally recommended so thats uncommon. But it was $47. So the product should be high quality, hence the critical review. Just to clarify if the dish was $22 this quality of stuff flounder would have been expected. $30-$60 isn't uncommon for stuffed flounder. Ive had amazing stuff flound for $28. But this was hands down the worst stuffed flounder I've ever had and had my stomach turning late last night as well. It sucks this was the case because the restaurant was gorgeous and the server was pleasant.

When the flounder was delivered, it was basqing in a bath of butter. The dish had burnt splatters all around the rim, which indicated it was sitting under the heat for a while unnecessarily. Not a deal breaker, but did set the expectation of what I'm about to chomp down on.

Firstly, the fish could have been re-plated to hide the heat the flounder just endured.

Secondly when I started the flounder was chewy on about 1/3rd of it, indicating it was overcooked. The parts of the flounder on the inner parts melted like butter.

Thirdly, the stuffing. was almost like a chunky soupy consistency. There were tiny tiny bits of minced shrimp and I am not sure I saw one piece of crab. There were tiny minced veggies can't put my finger on what it was but most likely red pepper. No flavor to the stuffing.

Fourthly, the flavor. Bland.

The saving grace was the bisque-like topping they put on top. This had the flavor but it ran out quickly.

If a place is selling $47 I'm expecting jumbo lump crab meat and a lot of dedication and focus on cooking it properly.

My guess is they cooked the outside so much because they wrapped the stuffing with the flounder and in order to heat up the stuffing in the middle they had to cook it too long. They need to get creative with the dish.

The view was gorgeous which is what you're paying for.

The server was very pleasant but very salesperson-y. I would say I didn't want something and every single time they would follow that up with a "are you sure?".

Then they were explaining how their swordfish they have is served within 24-48 hours of being caughter. Im pretty sure they said they get all of their fish within that time period. Which could the case but I don't see that being likely with all of the fish, let alone the swordfish. Where I grew up we had a bunch of ships going in and out catching fish. I had friends working on...

We were staying in the area one extra night as we have been celebrating my wife’s birthday this weekend and looking for a nice meal to bring the celebration to an end and we ended up turning left instead of going straight to narrow down our choices and ended up opting for The Oyster Rock.

Let me tell you, we were NOT disappointed!

We were told that it would be probably at least 20 minutes before being seated this Sunday evening, and even with a 14 month alongside with us, and nearing bedtime for her, we decided to wait it out.

We decided to grab a final beverage (or maybe second to last for this weekend) from the bar tender to help ride out the wait. And she quickly helped us quench our thirst. I don’t recall her name, but she was a delight and a great start to a great evening.

After about 20, maybe 25 minutes, we were seated and a little anxious as we started to feel pressed for time (you never know how our baby girl will do as we near her sleeping hour), but I’m glad we didn’t. We had a great server, Jeff, who gave us all the deets on the specials of the night - and man, they sounded great, but I had my mind made for some Calabash style seafood (which I had never officially had) and my wife had her mind set on the crab cakes.

Jeff was very accommodating to our need to sit down, eat up and run and even put in a little rush request so we could do just that.

He brought us a plate of house made chips and shrimp dip to pass the time, and I suppose my only critique was they were pretty heavily seasoned, but I still enjoyed them!

When the mains came though, holy momma were they good.

I got the fried shrimp and blackened scallops and both were cooked to PERFECTION. I’m going to give them top 3 in my book for scallops and top 3 in my book for shrimp. I would go back in a heartbeat for either!

My wife’s crab cakes were quite delicious too, and the portions were great for the price! All 3 of us really enjoyed that, and I’ll give them a top 5 in my book for the crab cakes - just snuck in I think!

I’d like to really thank the staff for giving us a great dining experience and wrap up to birthday weekend. We truly look forward to our next...