Bennett’s Calabash Seafood #1

FOOD

Calabash fried shrimp is the clearest opening to Bennett’s #1 food. The lightly battered seafood style continues through fried oysters, fried scallops, fried clams and fried flounder. Shrimp is prominent, but the fried group gives several kinds of seafood the same treatment. That is a substantial part of the buffet’s identity: a Calabash seafood dinner with shellfish and finfish in the pans, rather than a single fried shrimp dish standing in for the whole style.

Snow crab legs are available as a buffet option. Confirm the crab-included selection when ordering. Homemade crabcakes and broiled crab meat bring other crab dishes to the hot selection, with neither requiring the shell cracking involved in legs. The buffet therefore puts crab into several forms, alongside the fried seafood. The cakes and broiled meat belong to the cooked-dish side of that range.

Steamed oysters and steamed clams provide another shellfish treatment beside the fried versions, while black mussels extend the hot seafood further. Shrimp scampi and Bang Bang shrimp give shrimp individual dishes outside the Calabash group. Thai chili salmon adds a salmon preparation, and shrimp fried rice brings seafood into a rice dish. Those foods widen the hot buffet without making every seafood serving another portion of fried shrimp, oysters or flounder.

The cold selection contains spiced peel-and-eat shrimp and Cajun crawfish, plus shrimp salad and crabmeat salad. Peeling is part of the shrimp serving itself, keeping a little shellfish work in that part of dinner. The prepared salads offer shrimp and crab in different forms from the hot dishes. Greens and garden vegetables round out the salad selection. Seafood is present throughout this portion of the meal as well as in the cooked entrées.

Prime rib and rib-eye steaks give the land dishes a strong beef component. Southern fried chicken, grilled chicken, chicken tenders and fresh country sausage sit alongside them. These are buffet foods, so an appetite interested in meat has its own dinner within the wider seafood program. Fried chicken and sausage give the country portion recognizable main dishes, while the beef takes it beyond chicken alone. The table can have shellfish, beef and poultry meals going at once.

Macaroni and cheese, candied yams, cheesy broccoli, corn and seasonal vegetables supply the sides. Their country-dinner character works with either seafood or meat, with the vegetables varying by season. New England clam chowder carries seafood into the soup selection, joined by a rotating daily special. The combination of soup, salad and hot sides makes the meal broader than its headline seafood, with accompaniments already included rather than separately ordered for each entrée.

Banana pudding and hot cobbler carry the country theme into dessert. Cheesecake, ice cream, pies and cakes expand the sweet selection, leaving several kinds of finish after the seafood and meats. Specific selections vary with availability. The individually sold kitchen platters are a separate alternative to the buffet; this unlimited meal includes the shared seafood-and-country program and its desserts. Calabash frying and the crab-leg option remain the principal attractions, with beef and country dishes alongside them.