April 1st marked our 11th wedding anniversary, and last night my folks came up to take us out to dinner.

Since our part of Chatham County is pretty much ten miles to anywhere, even more to a good restaurant, we headed off to Durham. Shane, Andrea’s boss, had recommended Kemp’s Seafood House so we decided to try it.

I’m not sure about folks outside of this area, but there is a style of cooking seafood that is known as “Calabash”, after a small town on the coast near the border of North and South Carolina. The seafood is fresh, lightly breaded, and fried. It is often served with cole slaw and hushpuppies.

We had been looking for Calabash-style seafood in the area, and we weren’t disappointed. The place is large, and it was packed (we had to wait about 40 minutes for a table). Andrea and I both split a large “house platter” as did my parents. This was flounder, scallops, oysters, shrimp and deviled crab, piled high on a plate with french fries and cole slaw to boot. The portions were so huge we took some home (and remember each split a entree).

The meal, tip and a few beers came to $60, for four people.

This was much better than our experience with Fishmongers (also in Durham), and we’ll definitely be going back.