Sal and Phils

A friend of mine and I paid a visit to Sal and Phil's last night. It had been some time since I ate there so I was somewhat looking forward to our culinary excursion. I can safely say our experience there was a disappointment. The first clue should have been when we drove up at 7:30 on a Friday night as there were very few cars in the parking lot. This is usually a tell-tale sign about a restaurant in Jackson. Only a couple of tables had patrons. The staff was friendly enough and the facilities were clean.

The food was strictly average in quality. We ordered fried crab claws. They were somewhat dry with a little too much of a corn-meal taste to them (reminded me of hush puppies). My friend ordered the sweet shrimp. She only ate half of her order despited being very hungry as the shrimp were tough and not seasoned well. As she is a shrimp carnivorus maximus, I was surprised she ate so few of them as she nibbled on my french fries. I ordered the redfish and thought it was pretty good. Not dry, seasoned well, just right. The salads were fine although the salad bar was didn't offer much with few toppings available and only three dressings to choose from: Italian, Thousand Island, and Ranch.

The service was mediocre. Our food was brought to us almost immediately after we got our salads. We had several waiters. Had to ask for the silverware. Our waiter told us after serving our food we were getting another waiter as he had to prepare food for the next day. No big deal. Unfortunately, the next waiter starting pestering us literally every two or three minutes. It was pretty obvious he was trying to rush us off as he kept asking if we wanted the check (It wasn't even 9:00) and then kept rushing back every couple of minutes to see if we had it ready. I'm sure he wondered why he got a small tip.

Anyway, the grade for Sal and Phils is a C. Cleanliness was an A. Decor (for the type of restaurant it is) is an A. Food: Redfish B+, Shrimp: D. Service: C-. Prices: B.