Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012

Local Restaurant Notes

Carisa Squires, left, and Samantha Vince take requests at The Southern Cupcake Company in North Myrtle Beach. Photo by Becky Billingsley for Weekly Surge.

 

Super Bowl snack platters are available from Bliss Restaurant at 4606 U.S. 17 Business in Murrells Inlet. Each platter feeds 10 people and ranges in price from $15 to $30. Choices include crudités, crab dip, cheeses, finger sandwiches, tomato salsa, pimento cheese and spinach dip. Chef Ernest Bledsoe is also making chicken wings in portions of 25, 50 or 100 wings for $20-$65. The number to call to place your order is 282-6737.

Samantha Vince and Carisa Squires opened the doors on The Southern Cupcake Company at 3600 U.S. 17 S. in North Myrtle Beach just before Christmas, and the women make dozens of cupcake flavors including Banana Butterscotch, Mint Chocolate Chip, Red Velvet, White Chocolate Peppermint Bark, Irish Cream, Carrot Cake, Cinnamon Bun, Caramel Apple, Gluten-free Chocolate, Skinny Raspberry, Coconut, Southern Sweet Tea, Mango and Bavarian Crème. Prices are $2.50 each, $14 for a half-dozen or $25 for a dozen. Cake pops are $15 per dozen, and the minimum purchase is two dozen. Mini-cupcakes are $14 per dozen, and monster cupcakes are $10. They take requests for fondant decorations, from frogs to baby bottles and booties, and for canine pals they have dense Doggy Cupcakes using eggs, flour, oats, cinnamon, applesauce and peanut butter. Each day the shop features four regular cupcakes flavors and four different ones, and the shop also sells coffee and bottled drinks. The phone number is 427-7863, and The Southern Cupcake Company is open at 10 a.m. daily.

Island Bar and Grill at 2272 Glenns Bay Rd., Surfside Beach has its new menu at half-price from 3-7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. For example, during that period the Seared Ahi Tuna appetizer is $4 instead of the normal $8. Other new menu items include Southwest Spring Rolls, Hummus, Chili Lime Wings and Greek Salad. The number is 650-3157.

A new restaurant on Socastee Boulevard in Myrtle Beach has evolved from a catering business. Chef Nanette Thomas has provided catering at Sugar and Sage at 3640 B Socastee Blvd. for a few years, and recently she added a public dining room called BeanTree Cafe. For breakfast, lunch and early dinners Tuesdays through Sundays, Chef Thomas and Kelli Fellows offer breakfast sandwiches, from-scratch pastries and muffins, soups including Tomato Basil Bisque, Deviled Egg Salad Sandwich, Philly Cheese, Grilled Three Cheese with provolone, muenster and gouda on house-made roasted tomato and red onion focaccia bread; or the Grass Sandwich with leaf lettuce, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, thick slices of sharp Cheddar, herbed sea salt and sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. There are also daily lunch specials including Meatloaf Sandwich or Chicken Pot Pie. Meals can be topped off with a Black and White Cookie or Red Velvet Cupcake or, for Valentine's Day, specially-made Strawberries and Champagne Cupcakes. All-natural fruit smoothies and specialty coffee drinks are also served. The BeanTree Cafe at Sugar and Sage is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, and the number is 293-3339.

Consalvi's Italian Market and Deli may have closed, but Gary Consalvi is back in the food biz at J&J's Myrtle Beach Butcher Shop at 830 Inlet Square Dr. in Murrells Inlet. Consalvi is there making meatballs and pasta sauce, and is selling many Italian specialties including jumbo stuffed shells, manicotti, ravioli, breaded and cooked Italian-style chicken cutlets, veal cutlets, gnocchi, olives and more. The number at J&J's is 357-7407.

In a press release issued Jan. 20, Marlene Osteen, wife of Chef Louis Osteen, announced her husband's new restaurant home in Pawleys Island will be called Louis's at Sanford's. Charleston architect Reggie Gibson is overseeing remodeling of the restaurant, which was formerly called Sanford's Southern Fried Smokehouse. Dwayne Christen and Rodney Long are still the restaurant's owners. When the changeover is finished (no date has yet been announced), a new Louis's at Sanford's menu will include Preserved Duck with Creamy Grits, Lump Crab Cakes with Grained Mustard Seed Sauce, Short Ribs Braised with Wadmalaw Sweets, Chicken Fried Duck Breast with Kumquats, Braised Rabbit with Winter Squash Dumplings, Sautéed Scallops with Shrimp Hash and Curried Mussels. Smokehouse meats for which Sanford's was known will remain on the menu and also include new smoked dishes Austin style Brisket, Lamb Riblets and Suckling Pig. Additions to the bar and appetizer menu will be Trio of Meatball Sliders (Veal and Ricotta, Tuna and Traditional Italian); Crispy Black Eyed Peas; Bacon and Scallion Hushpuppies; and Fried Chicken Livers with caramelized onions. During happy hour, Chef Osteen's house-made Pimento Cheese will be complimentary at the bar. His Skillet Fried Chicken served at the Sunday Suppers at Louis's at Pawleys will again be available on Sundays at Louis's at Sanford's. The restaurant is at 251 Willbrook Blvd. in Pawleys Island, and the phone number is 237-5400. 

WaterScapes Restaurant is having a locally-sourced gourmet beer dinner in conjunction with New South Brewery. The $60 per person meal starts at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 29, and a few dishes in the six-course meal include Cocoa Dusted Scallop with smoked local honey paired with New South White Ale; and Seared Pork Belly with cracked black pepper waffle paired with New South Bourbon Barrel Porter. Reservations are being capped at 30 diners, and they can be made by calling 913-2837. WaterScapes is in the Marina Inn at Grande Dunes at 8121 Amalfi Place in Myrtle Beach.

Kelly Warner is going to open a bakery on Feb. 14 called Sunshine Sweets at 3574 U.S. 17 Business in Murrells Inlet, in the Inlet Cay Shoppes where Ndulge Cupcakery was formerly located. She plans to sell cupcakes, pies, cookies, butter bars, brownies and cakes.

At the intersection of Kings Highway and Third Avenue South in Myrtle Beach, a former breakfast restaurant is becoming Tutti's, a self-serve frozen yogurt shop and arcade. A mid-February opening is planned.

Clark's Seafood & Chop House at 720 U.S. 17 in Little River is being prepared for a March opening. The building was for years an Italian restaurant called Umberto's. Practically everything is new inside the building, including handsome stone tiles, hand-built booths, a new massive bar and new kitchen equipment.

A new restaurant called Brother Shuckers, in the former location of Villa Mare at 4999 Carolina Forest Blvd., is being opened by a longtime local restaurant veteran. David Murphy, who founded the nearby Tavern in the Forest restaurant, has several other restaurant experiences to his credit. Brother Shuckers' interior has been remodeled to open up the space between the dining room and bar, and before the planned Feb. 24 opening new artwork will be hung and other decor changes will be made, including adding ceiling fans and televisions. The restaurant will be non-smoking. Brother Shuckers will open at 4 p.m. daily and close at 11 or 11:30 p.m. It will have a full bar - including many different types of Bloody Marys - and the menu will feature seafood with 11 appetizers such as Seafood Spring Rolls starting at $7, and 11 entrees including Shrimp and Grits ranging from $13-$20. A raw bar menu will also be served, and catering will be available.

Margaret Sollars and Tom Sollars of Litchfield Restaurant in Pawleys Island have received many requests for them to be open on Sundays during the off season, so they've decided to make diners happy. They're now open from 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sundays and are serving their full regular menu of Southern home-style specialties. Litchfield Restaurant is at 12223 Ocean Highway, and the number is 237-4414.

Tammy's Ice Cream & More, which opened in June 2011 at 1011 4th Ave. in Conway, has closed. Soon a new restaurant called Sweet Spot Cafe will replace it and serve light lunches, coffee, ice cream and more.

Becky Billingsley serves daily restaurant news at MyrtleBeachRestaurantNews.com.