Lulu’s: New Restaurants are Fun?

So… we’ve owned a house in the Myrtle Beach area now for 6 years. We SHOULD know better by now, shouldn’t we? Any place that opens and plugs the restaurant opening with big fancy billboards can’t possibly be that good, right?! The hidden gems that we’ve found here over the years are the places that often have very few cars at them on a daily basis and little to no marketing budget. However, there’s something with human nature that is attracted to the shiny, new objects that we see; plus, we heard that it was worth checking out, so we did!

As soon as we walked in, we were greeted by a heavily commercial entrance selling everything from toys to sweatshirts to fancy (expensive) drink cups – not a great sign of things to come. We ordered their perfect margaritas, smoked tuna dip, a cheese quesadilla, Lucy’s fancy green salad with blackened chicken, Crazy Sista’s crab toast meal (crab melt on the menu), and a jerk chicken sandwich. The margarita was served in a solo-type plastic cup that was FULL of ice and limes, since what makes this ‘perfect’ is the use of fresh lime juice and more alcohol [sounded great on paper, right?!] – and as I was drinking it, I found myself wishing that I was across the street at Nacho Hippo drinking one of their fishbowl margaritas (a future blog for sure). I highly doubt even Jimmy Buffett would pay $10 for that tiny drink, but it wasn’t terrible.

The smoked tuna dip came before too long (thankfully before I decided to go buy one of their sweatshirts due to them leaving the garage doors up on a 50-degree evening), and it was delicious. The service was pretty fast because our meal came right behind the appetizer, and it was such a disappointment. The crab toast had huge chunks of shell in it – I mean all throughout it – while being on a bland, soft, generic white roll. The chicken for the “fancy” salad was obviously precooked and was cold. The quesadilla was fine because it’s hard to mess it up, but the fruit it came with was canned pineapple – what?! The jerk chicken sandwich was the least disappointing item, but even that was the best that could be said. Honestly, my favorite part was their fresh vegetable of the night, which my server forgot that I wanted instead of the fries. Since this falls flat of making me (or my belly) happy; I give this one a big, flat, sagging belly.

Thankfully, we live here, and we didn’t ruin a night of our week-long vacation going to a place like this – a commercial, forgettable place with ok food. I’m sure with their sand pits for volleyball, live music, huge boat dock, and plenty of seating – they will be packed this summer. This is only the third Lulus of its kind, which made it even more surprisingly that it had the feel of being just another run-of-the-mill chain restaurant. On the way out, I couldn’t resist a picture by the nearly dead hibiscus plant because it basically summed up the feeling of our experience – new, but mostly dried up on the inside. Next time, I’ll know better when picking out the new restaurant to try and make sure to avoid these lovely tourist-trap types, and hopefully, I’ve helped you not make the same mistake…