Because Josh and I only had time for two dinners in Hilton Head (we were leaving before dinner on Monday), we were adamant about eating low country food and not something that we could get here in NYC (i.e., Italian food). We’ve been out of the Hilton Head restaurant scene for so long though, and all our old favorites were either closed or serving subpar food, so Josh’s mom suggested a place we hadn’t been to before, the Aqua Grill.
Since there were so many of us (13 altogether), we were seated at a long table in a semi private room that was separate from the main dining room. That was too bad because the décor in the main room seemed to be really interesting and I kind of wanted to see what it was like. Oh well, we were here for the food anyway. They started us off with soft rolls covered in different kinds of seeds, sort of like an everything bagel. The accompanying butter looked like it was filled with pieces of roasted garlic but when I tasted it, it was actually sweet pecan butter. It was sort of a shock because I was expecting savory garlic flavor, but this was more like dessert. It was tasty though, and made me think I was eating a sweet breakfast roll.
Seeded rolls with sweet pecan butter
I knew immediately that I wanted the she crab soup for my appetizer, since I’ve been missing it for the last four years. Aqua’s version was exactly how I remembered it, though they were a bit heavy handed with the sherry on top. But it was smooth and creamy with a subtle crab flavor, and the seasoning was spot on. I ate every last bit of it and cleaned out my bowl with a piece of bread. It’s really a delicious soup, more mellow than chowder or bisques, but that’s what makes it unique.
She crab soup topped with sherry
Josh started with fried green tomatoes that was topped with cheddar cheese, lobster and shrimp salsa, and chipotle sour cream. The presentation was stunning, and fried green tomatoes were perfectly cooked. The toppings were light and refreshing, and everything worked beautifully together.
Fried green tomatoes with lobster and shrimp salsa
I had a hard time deciding what to eat for my main course, as a lot of things sounded really good. Luckily everyone around me was ordering different things so I knew I could always snag a bite from them. I ended up with the pan blackened mahi mahi served with fried green tomatoes, white cheddar grits, sherry scallion cream sauce, and lump crab salsa. The serving was huge, with all the ingredients stacked on top of each other. The grits were at the base, the fried green tomatoes in the middle, the mahi mahi on top, and the salsa was sprinkled over everything. I definitely need to use a knife and fork to eat it, and tried to get everything together in one bite.
Blackened mahi mahi with fried green tomatoes, white cheddar grits, sherry scallion cream sauce, lump crab salsa
At first the flavors were really delicious together, with the meaty fish and the tangy green tomatoes and the cheesy grits, bound together with the cream sauce. The more I ate though, the heavier it got. The fried green tomatoes were cut really thick and heavily breaded. The grits had a weird texture to it, almost like undercooked risotto. I’ve only had grits once, at a Waffle House so I don’t know if that counts, but these were very different. It wasn’t as creamy as I thought it would be, and had really crunchy pieces in it. There also wasn’t enough cream sauce to cover the large portion, and so halfway through I ran out, and everything was just a bit too dry. I also didn’t taste any lump crab in the salsa at all. I didn’t see any pieces either, so I don’t know if it was really there, or if it got lost in all the other ingredients. This dish really had a lot of potential, but there was just too much going on, and too much of everything.
Josh had the pecan encrusted grouper. Grouper is a local fish in Hilton Head, and it’s a very meaty and sturdy fish. I wasn’t a huge fan of the texture, as I like my fish to be more delicate and flaky. The accompanying spicy cranberry sauce and basil mascarpone helped moisten everything up though, and I thought it was a sweet and tasty dish.
Pecan encrusted grouper with spicy cranberry sauce
The service at Aqua was efficient and attentive, up until we were dealing with the check. I know there were a lot of us, and we were splitting up the bill in different ways, but we tried our best to make it easier on the staff and somehow everything got horribly messed up. Because we were a party larger than 6, gratuity was automatically added to the bill. Fine, no problem. We divided the bill using cash and three credit cards. To make the credit card portion easier, we wrote down the card number and the amount we wanted on each card. We had rounded up in our calculations, so the final amount we were paying was about $3 more than the total bill. We gave everything to the waiter, and when everyone looked at their credit card slips, there was a huge error. Because our bill included gratuity, we had divided it up counting the gratuity. The number we gave the waiter for each card was including that gratuity. Well when he rang it up, he put in the number we gave, and it added another 20% gratuity to each card. So this was on top of the original 20% already in the bill.
Now I know that splitting up bills on different credit cards is a big pain for servers, but we really tried to make it easier on them. We’ve done this a million times in other restaurants, and we never had this problem before. We called the waiter back and explained the situation to him, but he didn’t seem to understand that they were adding an extra 20%. He thought we were quibbling about the extra $3, and offered to pay it back to us out of his pocket. That’s not what we were saying, and we were definitely put off by his attitude. He went to check with a manager, and then came back and said that it was the computer’s fault, because it automatically adds 20%. I don’t know how that makes sense, even if we had paid with just 1 credit card. The gratuity was already in the bill. After a lot of back and forth, he finally came back and gave us a bill, sans the automatic gratuity. So we had to go through the process of calculating everyone’s share without the gratuity, writing it all down again, and then adding in the 20% ourselves when the credit card slip came. This process took over half an hour. No joke. The waiter blamed it on the computer, but it was apparently perfectly capable of spitting out credit card slips without the automatic 20% gratuity, so I think it was just his problem in not understanding the situation. He acted like we were trying to cheat him out his tip, which wasn’t the case at all. We were all offended by his attitude.
After that ordeal, I think we all left the restaurant on a down note. Which was too bad, because I really did enjoy a lot of the meal. The food was tasty and fresh, and the service was great up until that point. Now I have mixed emotions about whether or not I would come back. There are so many great restaurants in Hilton Head that serve similar food, so I don’t need to be subjected to a bad attitude. But maybe the waiter was just having an off day, or he was tired because it was pretty late and they were starting to close up. I don’t know, and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. So I would probably go back simply because I enjoyed the food, and hopefully next time there won’t be any more credit card/gratuity issues.
Aqua Grill & Lounge
10 North Forest Beach Dr.
Hilton Head Island, SC
