California Dreaming

I can't say I was extremely impressed or disappointed. We went outside and sat by the water on a beautiful day! Things ordered: crab legs, regular nachos & chicken chipotle wrap. The crab legs tasted like...something fried. I dig the nachos, they were very good. A little more sour cream would be nice but I took the light sour cream as a sign that i didn't need to be a complete fatty. The chicken chipotle wrap was rather dry and over seasoned. It just wasn't very good and we didn't finish it (We split everything). The sweet tea was great, but if you don't like some tea with your sugar then it might not be the best choice for you. As far as service, it wasn't bad but it is hard to compliment. Our server came back to ask what we ordered, it happens. He checked on us in good time but then disappeared. As we sat there with our dirty plates another server helped get us out of there as she didn't know where he had went to (we didn't ask).

I did notice a ton of pick up orders, they take it out to your car for you.

On a final note, the fans outside are great but the misting isn't so good when you are eating. I can kind of understand it if you were just having some drinks.

I went here recently for a friends birthday. I had been to California Dreaming before in other locations but never here. This one is definitely the nicest I have been to and how can you beat those views. The restaurant is practically in the water. People often think it is an old building that they renovated into a restaurant but, its common for California Dreaming to make their restaurants look like castles. I must say they did a pretty good job with this one making it look like an old timey civil war fort.

We had a large party and the service was great. They assigned us two waiters and did an excellent job taking care of everything. Even brought out a little ice cream for the birthday girl.

For my meal I had the filet medallions with fried shrimp and the red potato mash. The potatoes were just okay but the filet and shrimp were top notch - not a bit of fat on the steak what so ever. Surprisingly one of the biggest standouts was the house salad. I don't generally get excited about salads but this thing was serious. The house dressing is a hot bacon honey mustard and it was... "wait a minute, did you say bacon? Why yes I did!" fantastic. The salad is huge and comes with a fluffy croissant drizzled with some sort of honey butter I imagine. Needless to say, it was a pretty impressive salad.

It's tough to check out the chain restaurants in a city full of culinary excellence and it might not be my first choice compared to what else we have in town but, it definitely won't disappoint either.

Your not getting a food network foodie experience here, but you are getting a solid reasonably priced meal with a killer view. This is a chain restaurant. And some familiarity might be just thing thing you need when the Charleston sun and humidity zap all of your mental energy. This was a no brainer for our party. We had heard about the view and were familiar with California Dreaming's menu. It's a pretty safe bet for eating out in Charleston. The food doesn't blow your mind. It's pretty good. The wait staff was pretty good. Overall we had a really good experience.