[table for two]

Sunsets for Free!
But The Breezeway’s seafood and service is worth every dime

By: Rosa Bianca

Last week while on vacation, I, along with the rest of my extended family, had the pleasure of eating a dinner cooked by my twin 8-year-old nephews (known affectionately, as twins often are, as “Thing One and Thing Two”). It was an ... amusing experience to watch them in the kitchen negotiating spaghetti and sauce.

The Breezeway Motel & Restaurant
636 Channel Blvd. Topsail Beach, NC
(910) 328-7751
Food: *** Ambience: ***
Service: **** Cost: $$

By far the most entertaining moment was when they tossed the salad, which they did by putting lettuce into a pillow case and whirling the cases around their heads while standing on the beach house deck, until they got distracted and started whacking each other. At any moment we expected to see pieces of iceberg go flying like confetti over the railing. Luckily, we had persuaded Thing One and Thing Two that it would be better to add the tomatoes after the salad had been tossed.

Dinner was delicious, helped along by the pleasure of having my family around and by the fact that we were all ensconced in a beach house on Topsail. Therefore, it was not my kitchen that had been subject to the attentions of two enthusiastic twin boys.

The following night we decided against a repeat performance and went out to eat. Like my family and I, if visitors were to stop into any of the shops along Route 210 leading onto the island—any of the ice cream places, surfing stores or bric-a-brac shops selling sea shells from Thailand and locally-made sea glass jewelry—and ask where the best place to eat would be, nine times out of 10, the girl behind the counter will say, “Oh, you have to go to the Breezeway.”

Located at about mile marker two in the town of Topsail Beach, at the south end of the island, nonetheless, The Breezeway Seafood Restaurant is an institution. Much like Middle of the Island used to be on Wrightsville, the Breezeway is one of those spots (every beach town has one) beloved by locals and visitors alike for its ability to encapsulate everything that is best about life at the seashore. That would be the sun, the sand and the seafood.

The Breezeway actually began in 1949 as a little diner housed in the barracks and mess hall left from “Operation Bumblebee” (the top-secret military project that developed the first jet engine). Servicemen from Camp Davis used to come over for the roasted oysters. In 1972 the current Breezeway was built, along with a motel that stays open in the spring, summer and fall. Situated on the sound side of the island, right next door to the Missiles and More Museum and just down the block from the Sea Turtle Hospital, the Breezeway is the hub of what’s happening in the town of Topsail Beach.

If anybody asked Thing One or Two the coolest part of the The Breezeway, he would mention either the glass case full of shells situated in the entrance way, the large tank of tropical fish at the counter or the candy-bar cake they ate for dessert, which had pieces of Hershey bars in the frosting.

The dining room was jam-packed and noisy with the clatter of dishes, the dull roar of people talking and a constant “ding” of a bell from behind the swinging doors to the kitchen—the kind of sound that announces “order’s up!” Despite the large size of our party, we were seated almost immediately, the waitress simply shoving several smaller tables in the center of the room together to accommodate the whole family. She had to take our orders standing at one far end of the table since there wasn’t enough space between our party and the people next to us that allowed her a walk-through. That contributed slightly to the roar of voices in the room, but it was a happy-sounding roar that we really didn’t mind.

The menu, naturally, is built around seafood. I know I talk a lot and in not always so generous terms about the fried seafood combo platter, but there are restaurants who have built their reputation on this type of meal, and The Breezeway is one of them. I felt it would be ridiculous to order the Chicken Alfredo at a place that made its start serving oysters to hungry servicemen.

After some dithering, while I tried to decide if I was in the mood for crab cakes or not—and Thing One announced his intention of having the pasta and marinara sauce (one of the few other options on the menu that didn’t include seafood) despite our attempts to convince him, Ohio born and bred, that he liked fried shrimp—I ended up ordering one of the day’s specials: grilled flounder with mango salsa, coleslaw and a baked potato. Mom ordered the same thing, but with red beans and rice (which I’d thought to ask for but declined). Dad ordered blackened grouper. My sister and her husband went with shrimp scampi. We all decided to split an appetizer of calamari and another of coconut shrimp. It was rather hectic (little boys are always in perpetual motion), so it wasn’t until all the food was on the table that I realized I’d somehow managed not to order any of the traditional fried seafood at all—unless fried calamari counts, which I don’t think it should.

Nevertheless, we all wolfed down our meals. Ordering fish is always a major test of a restaurant for me—fish is so easy to overcook, and flounder is especially unforgiving of heavy-handed techniques in the kitchen. On the other hand, surely no restaurant as consistently popular as The Breezeway would retain its reputation if it were consistently overcooking the entrées. In point of fact, the flounder was deliciously done—not a single piece of the filet tasted too dry or scorched. I thought the mango salsa, which included a touch of red onion and cilantro, was a trifle too exuberant for the mild taste of the fish—mango is a quite demanding fruit. Yet, the fish itself was lightly seasoned with paprika and cayenne pepper, and was excellent.

As was Dad’s grouper. Someone in the The Breezeway kitchen obviously knew their way around the usual methods of preparing fish. I thought their idea of “blackened” was not, in fact, very black and more on the mild than the searingly spicy side. And the shrimp scampi (yes, I swiped stuff off everybody’s plates) was as advertised: rich, buttery, but actually not too garlicky, which was a pleasant surprise.

There were some other surprises. Somebody in charge of the menu at The Breezeway has a serious sweet tooth—which was evident in the way they made the hush puppies (which had honey in them, I’m sure) and the way they made the coleslaw, which was seasoned with something that Mom and I eventually decided was Pumpkin Pie Spice. Where it really came through, though, was in the desserts.
Remember the aforementioned candy bar cake? Well, I’m embarrassed to say that the family got the waitress to commandeer every slice left. There wasn’t enough for everyone, so we gave them to the 8-year-olds at the table: Thing One, Thing Two and my dad, whom I decided might rate as an 8-year-old since he insisted that for the purposes of this column he be referred to as “Captain Janeway” and wanted my poor mother to be “Seven of Nine” (Dad is a fan Star Trek Voyager, in case it wasn’t blindingly obvious). She had the key lime pie and pronounced it very good, while I had something called a Banana Xango, which the waitress, when queried, could describe only vaguely.

It turned out to be a deliciously, ridiculously sweet dessert of banana-flavored cheesecake filling, wrapped up in a pastry shell like a spring roll and flash-fried, then drizzled with honey and served with vanilla ice cream. I was fearing for the state of the enamel on my teeth. Still, the concoction was fantastic.

Every part of our meal was exactly what one might expect (and want) from a seaside restaurant at the height of the summer: great food, which tasted even better after having just come off the beach, still slightly reeking of suntan oil and shaking the sand out of our sandals. The prices? They are modest—usually in the $17-$20 range. As the menu points out, the sunsets are free.