Thursday, November 11, 2010

Erin's Restaurant - Rock Hill, SC

Erin’s is a small, locally owned restaurant located in downtown Rock Hill, SC. It has recently moved to a new location and shares the space with another eatery that uses it during lunch and Erin’s is using at night.

Erin’s has two dining experiences to choose from. The first is to dine Al a Carte which includes selections from a menu that changes daily depending on the local produce that is available at that time. Diners can also choose to dine Family Style involving everyone sat around one table and helping themselves to a number of courses as the bowls are passed around. We opted to dine family style.

I am going to split this review into two halves, the first will be discussing the food, the second the service.

There ended up being eleven of us around the table, which even though it is a large number was still comfortable. The tableware was made up of an assortment of porcelain plates with different colors and designs on them. I loved this idea as it sparked conversation at table comparing the different plates everyone had.

First to arrive were two salads, a bleu cheese coleslaw and an apple salad followed by a Asian-inspired cucumber salad and some other dishes (too many to remember). Unfortunately there was not enough of the apple salad to try but the other dishes I tried were superb, particularly the cucumber salad.

The starter courses were cleared and we were treated to roughly ten different dishes to try. These included chicken and dumplings, collard greens, pork tenderloin, squash in a cheese sauce, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, eggplant parmesan and boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce. All of these dishes were amazing. Particularly the chicken and dumplings, and the mashed potatoes. Everything was eaten and all at the table agreed that the food was fantastic. We were then treated to two desserts; apple pie and key lime pie. Both were divine and a wonderful choice to finish on.

As for the service, it couldn’t have been more opposite of the quality of the food. When we arrived, we were waiting for at 5 minutes before we approached and acknowledged. Once we had joined the table, it took at least ten minutes for the waitress to take our drinks order and give us plates and silverware. The drinks were hardly ever refilled and the empty food dishes ended up piling up at the end of the table. At the end of the meal we were waiting for the waitress to clear the table but she was texting in the corner.

I have to give this restaurant 3 out of 5 which is such a shame because the food was most certainly worth a 5 but the appalling service let it down considerably

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