My family and I recently took a trip to Orangeburg, South Carolina on a vacation over the Independence Day weekend. In the days leading up to the trip, Jonathan (“Sonny”) and I did a little bit of brainstorming on some places we wanted to visit in the Orangeburg area so that we could enjoy some food, then blog about them. We came up with a few, and Seafood Academy was one of the places that made the cut.

Upon our arrival after the 9-hour drive and eventual check-in and settling at the hotel, Sonny and I, plus our 5 family members all decided to head on over to the Seafood Academy, which happened to be right across the highway from where we were staying. We dropped in at the restaurant at 8:15 p.m. and decided to stay even though they were set to close at 9:00.

I wasn’t quite sure of what to expect when we walked in, with a name like Seafood Academy – academy, as in “school”. The outside looked more like a tavern, but the foyer inside looked like an intimate little restaurant. We were greeted by a friendly hostess and seated immediately, as there were no other patrons there, except for one person seated at the bar. Before I sat, I glanced around the room and found that the dining tables were set properly with white linen tablecloths, folded white linen napkins, water goblets and silverware, with burgundy leather-like menus. The bar area was very dimly lit, and equipped with one small television.

Once we were seated, I was able to take things in a little more closely. I noticed that there was a slight musty, “basement” odor coming from somewhere that I couldn’t pinpoint. Some of my silverware had hard-water spots on them and that out of the three aquariums that sat together along a wall, the one that appeared to have been a salt-water aquarium was full of green murky water that resembled lime jello, and fish that were pale and either slow-moving or sitting stationary as if they were in the beginning stages of death. Eeek.

On to the positives: Our waiter arrived at the table to greet us, introduce himself and take our orders. He also was very pleasant, well-mannered as well as gracious and attentive. We placed our orders, which returned in good time in my opinion. Everything on the menu was reasonably priced, and although there wasn’t a ton of items to choose from, I felt like I was able to make a choice easily and be satisfied.

I ordered a Salmon Caesar Salad; Sonny ordered a salad topped with fried shrimp, and my two daughters (both of whom were not pleased with me forcing them to order from the kids’ menu) ordered fried shrimp and french fries. I’m not quite sure what my mother, brother and sister-in-law ordered. Before our entree’s arrived, we were given two baskets of warm sliced french bread and butter. The bread was SO good. LOL!! It was warmed perfectly – not too toasted or crispy, just warm enough. We ate the bread pretty quickly since it we all enjoyed it so much (and I think because we were all hungry from the trip), so the waiter was more than willing to go and get us another two baskets of bread as fast as we had eaten the first. Everyone except Sonny and I had enough sense to stop eating the bread to save room for the real food. We sent for a third basket. LOL!!

Our food arrived and we all enjoyed what we had. I thought my salad was decent. The salmon was broiled nicely – not too dry, not too soggy. And for my daughters to have ordered from the kids menu, they were pleasantly surprised to have received such nice-sized portions of shrimp. I tasted one of my daughter’s shrimp and it was pretty good. Sonny seemed to enjoy his shrimp salad and the rest of the family didn’t complain at all about what they had.

While we were finishing up and the staff was coming to retrieve our plates and other items and bring the bill, our waiter came back to the table with two carry-out containers full of more bread. 😀 This made Sonny happy. LOL!! In all, I think our dining experience here went pretty well. I found it easy to make the best of my time here, even after having been grossed-out by the dirty aquarium, and getting a slight whiff of a musty basement or old water coming from somewhere, from time to time. The polite staff and pretty decent food made up for the minor misses. I wouldn’t call this restaurant a dive, and its by no means upscale. But it did serve the purpose at the time. Out of 5 stars, I’ll give it a 2.5

– Alonda 🙂