deacdiggler
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Good list but you skipped figure 8. I agree with your characterizations
Good list but you skipped figure 8. I agree with your characterizations
At Sunset, you still have to drive a little to get to the Calabash places. But being that close to South Carolina gets you cheap gas and booze, which is nice.
My mom grew up in Lumberton and has this very romantic view of Callabash from childhood. I love and appreciate good fried seafood, but I’ve always been underwhelmed and she went for the first time in maybe 20 years last summer and was similarly underwhelmed. Has it gone downhill or is it just that anything outside of Lumberton would seem like paradise?
Is Figure 8 even a public beach or just a small island where John Edwards has a home?
I grew up in a nearby town that views Lumberton as a cultural and commercial outpost so I too grew up thinking "mmmm boy, Calabash style is as good as it gets." Now when I go I just see it as a plate full 'o fried seafood. That seafood is typically fresh though, so sure, it's good. Frankly, I've come to think of fried as about the most uninteresting way to prepare seafood, one step ahead of just broiling it with some lemon juice (for those times when I'm super adherent to what I'm eating) so I'm not too enthusiastic for the 'bash. Anyway, the folks in my hometown still view Calabash as all that, so I don't think there's a general downturn in the quality.
Just for my 2 cents, I've never considered there to be too much of a difference between Sunset and OIB. I've viewed Sunset as OIB Minor, basically.
My mom grew up in Lumberton and has this very romantic view of Callabash from childhood. I love and appreciate good fried seafood, but I’ve always been underwhelmed and she went for the first time in maybe 20 years last summer and was similarly underwhelmed. Has it gone downhill or is it just that anything outside of Lumberton would seem like paradise?
My primary thought about Sunset Beach is that I'm not sure why you'd go there and drive that far when there are other similar beaches that are closer. I feel like people go there for the seafood, but I'm not super drawn to the Calabash thing. I appreciate good fried seafood from time to time - fried oysters can be amaaahzing - but eating massive piles of it at an all-you-can-eat-buffet is not really my jam.
this place at Calabash our is fav restaurant at the coast; couldn't even tell you if they have Calabash-style b/c we got straight to the grilled/steamed/blackened , etc. menu:
http://boundaryhouserestaurant.com/
And if it's just you and the wife or maybe 3-4 of you, bypass the rubes waiting outside with the beeper things and go straight to the bar. They emphasize their bar food service; usually 4-5 bartenders/servers there and each one is trained to treat you as their own table, i.e. you'll never lack for a refill, extra bread, etc.
I fully admit I have not spent much time along the Crystal Coast, mostly because it’s not as scenic or culturally/historically/geographically interesting as the Outer Banks, and it’s further for me than the New Hanover/Brunswick beaches. I am basically neutral on the Crystal Coast.
The outer banks is another place that people either love or hate. My family has vacationed on the coast of the Carolinas for generations. We have tried almost all of them at one point or another - with the exception of Topsail and Oak Island. The Outer Banks was different and has some good qualities but after going for a couple of years we never went back. It is just different and, in some ways, weird - it doesn't feel like a Carolina beach. The food is different, (I can't remember now but it seems like there wasn't much flounder or shrimp? and generally no sweet tea?), the people are different (lots of Canadians and people from the north - the workers were mostly Eastern European) [not saying that is bad, just gives it a different feel], the water is different (much colder and rougher). That being said, the Duck area is really cool, the lighthouses are cool, the quiet and solitude on the southern portions is really cool, Ocracoke is cool. It also takes a long time to get there from the rest of NC, depending on where you are going...