Bummz

While on the beach yesterday I had the good fortune of talking to some locals who were kind enough to point out some restaurants that were not buffet-style.

There are two main strips I have discovered so far. One is Ocean Blvd and the other is Kings Hwy (or US-17). The former consists of hotels, motels, resorts and very little else. The latter is peppered with buffet-style family restaurants. I guess at one point in time these were coveted and the market became over saturated. I am not a fan of buffets and, although I was forced by circumstances to eat in one the first night, do not plan to repeat the experience. But how do you find good food places? I discovered that even armed with the laptop and a wireless connection, unless you know what you are looking for, you can search for many hours and still not be sure if what you've found will be good. This is why I was happy to meet Dianne and Ed. They have moved to Myrtle Beach from Ohio a few years back and were happy to drop a few must-eat-at restaurant names.

One of them was Bummz, the only restaurant actually on the beach. It is on the same road that our hotel is located on so we took their advice. Slowly driving up Ocean Blvd where the speed limit is 25 mph we found Bummz about 8 minutes later. They have a large patio overlooking the beach, with nice palm trees and other tropical vegetation. They also have a nice guitarist -- on our visit the guitarist happened to be female -- and it is beyond words nice to eat your meal while listening to live music and having the ocean waves crashing on the shore as background noise. We stayed for two hours, because Charlie was alone in the hotel room and House premiered at 8 pm, but I could have easily stayed longer. I had the grilled grouper with rice and coleslaw and Jen had a burger (BORING) because the kitchen was out of the stuffed flounder. We'll go back once more before leaving as I want to take some picture and sit there once more. Bummz is definitely a place everyone should visit when in Myrtle Beach. We'll be back for sure.

The other place Dianne mentioned was Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. Jen had found a brochure for it at the South Carolina visitor centre and we were planning to go anyway, but to hear Dianne mention it as another must-visit, well, it cemented my decision. She said that whenever they have visitors from out of town, they always take them to Margaritaville. So today we're leaving Charlie once again in search of good food and atmosphere.

Finally, when I told Dianne we are going to Charleston one day this week she told me we must try "Bubba's". I thought I didn't hear her right, so I asked... Bubba? Her response was "Yeah, Bubba Gump's, like you know, in that movie?" Of course I know the movie, who doesn't? So we'll likely be dining at Bubba's tomorrow.

So much food, so little time...