MyrtleBeach.com Blog RSS Feed

Taste of Myrtle Beach: 10 must-try dishes around town

By Terry Massey Oct 13, 2010

Myrtle Beach is full of unique restaurants and tastes for you to explore.

Myrtle Beach SC | The 27th annual Taste of the Town was held Tuesday at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center and I may not eat again until the 28th annual festival of food.

There’s no way I could possibly try every item from the more than 50 local restaurants that participated, but that didn’t stop me from trying. I shared dishes with friends to get the maximum taste per ticket, but it was impossible to sample them all. Still, I’ve managed to make my own list of awards from the event.

My list is not as complete as the judges’ and people’s choice awards that were handed out to the winners. Here are my top-10 awards for the Taste of the Town:

10) Most Interesting Dish: No contest on this one, it was the frozen coffee with pieces of bacon served up by Lulu’s Cafe, a restaurant that doesn’t open on the Grand Strand until February. It was like cold breakfast poured in a blender, a dish obviously invented by someone who was running late to work one morning.

9) Cupcake War Medal of Honor winner: Hands down the cupcake-making fools at Cakes by the Sea. This booth served up a wide variety of desserts in a baking tin, from raspberry cream to cream cheese and from red velvet to yellow cream. It may be well worth the long drive to Longs to taste your way around this bakery.

8) Most Pleasant Surprise: I’ve been to Bimini’s 100 times and never tried their fried oysters. I’m an oyster purist - just crack open the shell and suck them down; no need to fry them or smother them in hollendaise sauce. But the light, crispy batter on these bad boys, along with a drop of hot sauce, melted in my mouth.

7) Accuracy in Advertising Award: The most aptly named restaurant in terms of the dish they served goes to Sticky Fingers, a rib joint at Coastal Grand Mall that lives up to its billing. The ribs were melt-in-your-mouth tender and the sauce was lick-off-your-fingers tasty. Good thing they brought along plenty of napkins.

6) Best Real People Food: Lots of upscale participants like to dazzle Taste attendees with fancy dishes, but a sleeper brought the general public back for seconds. The Noizy Oyster’s crab cakes were all crab and no cake, the ribs were fall-off-the-bone tender and the banana pudding was like granny used to make.

5) Best Liquid Supper: All the major beer suppliers were on hand serving up their best brews, and there were lots of contenders with Gordon Biersch’s new Oktoberfest, Flat Tire’s 1554 and Autumn Ale House’s Hefeweizen. But the best tasting brew was Liberty’s Imperial Pale Ale, perfect for washing down all the good grub.

4) Best Newcomer: Salt Creek Cafe is now Salt Water Creek Cafe, but the food is great regardless of the name. This first-time Taste participant served up a small sample of its eclectic menu and flavor of Murrells Inlet with tasty, tiny crab cakes and surprisingly good sushi that matched all the sushi specialists.

3) All Good All the Time Award: Taste participants come and go but there’s one place that’s consistently good at both the event and the restaurant. The Sea Captain’s House once again put its best food forward at this year’s event, with the always tasty she-crab soup and a flounder and shrimp dish that was delicious.

2) Best Bang for your Buck, err, Ticket: The best combination of quality and quantity once again goes to Rioz Brazilian Steakhouse, which set out a spread of grilled meats and veggies for just a few tickets. It only makes sense considering you can’t walk out of the restaurant until you have gained at least five pounds.

1) Best New School Spin on Old School Dish Award: Shrimp and grits are to South Carolina like Chicago and deep-dish pizza, but the Gulfstream Cafe put a new twist on the old standard that I’d never tasted. a pan-friend grit cake topped with peel-and-eat shrimp and topped in a spicy sauce that pulled it all together. This restaurant has more to offer than just the best view on the Strand.