Bill's Seafood Restaurant

Bill's is one of the long established restaurants on the island with the reputation and high prices.  We ate there Monday for a late lunch (Bill's famous crab cake sandwich with hollandaise sauce and string fries).  On my 120 point scale (30 points each for food, service, cleanliness, ambiance), I scored Bill's at 88 (22-24-22-20), which is not what I would expect for a $$ restaurant.

Accepts reservations?.... Kind of.
My boyfriend and I visited the island for the July 4th weekend, so I figured making a reservation for dinner on Friday night was a good idea considering how most of the lodging was booked up. I called the morning we planned to dine there and made a reservation for 7:30 - no problem, I was told. Later in the day, we were running a bit late, so I called back and asked if we could make it 7:45, since I didn't want our table to be given away - still not a problem. When we arrived around 7:35/7:40, I checked in and the host verified that I had a reservation at 7:45, rescheduled from 7:30. The place was very busy, but we felt confident since we made a reservation that we would be seated shortly... We then proceeded to wait for about 45-50 minutes for a table to open up. We were chatting with a family visiting from NZ who had made a reservation for 7:30 and were experiencing the same problem. The father spoke with the host and was told that guests were seated based on the time they arrived.... so, in essence, even though we had both made reservations and arrived before the appointed time, guests who had arrived earlier without reservations were seated before us. The family's name was one higher on the list than ours, so they graciously invited us to dine with them to help cut down on wait time.

As for the food and service, I would rate it at 3/5. I had the crab cakes, which are considered one of the chef's specialities. They come either broiled (which I chose) or fried with a hollandaise sauce. I had expected the crab cakes to be breaded and have a crispy outside, but I really couldn't tell because of the "sauce". The hollandaise sauce was like none I had ever had before - it was more thick cheese covering than sauce (which one might expect to see on a baked pasta dish) and had been put on prior to broiling, so that the crab cakes were unable to brown and were "trapped" beneath it. They had a good flavor, but overall this dish was nothing to write home about. My boyfriend had the New York strip steak, which he really enjoyed. All sauces come in pre-packaged plastic containers - salad dressings, sauce for the oysters, sour cream, etc - which I found to be a little tacky as this was billed as the best restaurant on the island. The bread was very good and is covered in a kind of butter/oil glaze. There are no draft beers, only bottles. Overall, it was an okay meal, but I would try another restaurant if we ever return to the island. Had our reservations been honored, I would have enjoyed this meal much more. The best part of it was the good conversation with the new friends we made.

Bill's was pretty pricey for a lackluster meal. The best thing we ate was the bread, which is soft and delicious.

They were out of soft shell crab so I had the Crab Imperial. Don't get the Crab Imperial. It's two plates of crab meat in a sweet heavy cream sauce, like a filet stuffing that never made it to the right entree.

My wife's baked potato was undercooked but we had this conversation about her broiled flounder:

Me: "What did you think about the flounder? I'm writing the Yelp review."

Wife: "Oh, write about yours, don't write about mine."

Me: "Didn't you say you were disappointed?"

Wife: "I mean, it wasn't poorly cooked or anything. "

Me: "But what was disappointing about it?"

Wife: "I don't know, I guess the whole experience was disappointing."

Well put, wife.

Now Woody's BBQ was f-ing amazing. Get a pulled pork sandwich then make out with your wife in the car.