The Sea Grass Grille was a new restaurant for all of us, and it seems to get great reviews online. The restaurant has a definite seafood focus, though there are options for meat lovers as well. The meal got off to a good start with a basket of crusty baguette slices and some delicious herbed biscuits.
Slices of baguette and herbed biscuits
Josh and I both ordered the she crab soup for our first course. It was the only she crab soup we had that week, and it was pretty good. The soup was creamy and rich, not too thick, with a decent amount of crab flavor.
She crab soup
For my main course, I ordered the special of the day, monkfish with a mushroom cream sauce. The fish itself was well prepared, lightly coated and pan seared. The allure for me was the mushroom cream sauce though, which I think was finished with truffle oil because it had the wonderful aroma and earthiness of truffles. It was a pretty heavy dish for a hot summer day, but I didn’t mind.
Monkfish with mushroom cream sauce
Josh ordered the grouper piccata, which looked beautiful on the plate with a golden brown crust on the outside, but looks were deceptive. The fish itself was a bit soggy, and the caper/lemon/butter/white wine sauce completely overwhelmed the flavor of the fish. It wasn’t a bad dish, in that it tasted ok, but it wasn’t a combination that made a whole lot of sense to us.
Grouper piccata sauteed with lemon, butter, white wine and capers
For dessert, we ordered the key lime pie and the peach cobbler to share for the whole table. The key lime pie had a good amount of tartness to it, not too sweet. The filling was smooth and custardy, which I liked. Instead of a graham cracker crust, it had an oreo cookie crust, which I thought was a bit unusual. I love oreos, but I think I prefer a graham cracker crust with my key lime pie. There was also a caramel sauce drizzled over the top that was a bit out of place – I don’t think it was needed, and detracted a bit from the tasty key lime filling. Whipped cream would have been a better complement.
Key lime pie
The peach cobbler was the special dessert of the day. It had a flaky top crust and the filling was sweet and soft. It was served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream that melted quickly over the hot cobbler. Not bad, not great.
Peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream
Overall, we were a bit underwhelmed by the food at the Sea Grass Grille. Nothing was bad, but everything was just ok. I was a bit surprised to see that all of our main courses featured the same exact sides – broccoli, string beans, carrots, and a potato gratin. Sadly, the common sides just reminded me of bad banquet food – mushy, bland, ordinary. I’m more excited by restaurants that tailor the sides for each entree, depending on the protein, sauce, etc. It’s also on the pricier side, with appetizers generally in the $8-$10 range and entrees in the $20-$30 range, so I expected a bit more from the preparations. It’s not a place I see ourselves going back to.
Sea Grass Grille
807 William Hilton Pkwy #1000
Hilton Head, SC
Tags: Desserts, Hilton Head, Seafood, Soup, South Carolina