Season 4 Episode 10 | 3m 21s | Video has closed captioning.
Now who would have thought you could find authentic Gullah cuisine, by way of New York, in the small town of Manning. Well, we found just that at Gullah Gullah Fish and Seafood. This dynamic team of a mom and two sons returned south from the bustling city to bring their unique style of cooking to this small town.
Aired: 11/22/22
♪ <Craig Levy> A lot of people when they come in, they feel like it's a wholesome environment.
They feel like family when they come in.
It's like when they come in and they feel like it's their mother and they're aunt also, so just them coming in and seeing them puts a smile on their face and knowing they're getting good food at the same time.
That's a big part of it.
<Barbara Levy> Manning, it's beautiful.
It's a quiet place you know, and the people are very friendly.
Well, this is originally my home and I left in 1965.
I moved to New York and retired and relocated back home after being in New York for about 40 years.
<Craig Levy> And I was born and raised in New York, but, you know, my mother's from here so I decided to come with my little New York twist, with her South Carolina roots and stuff like that.
That's how it came to fruition.
Now, growing up we came down every summer as a kid and I said, they don't really have a good soul food seafood place, and when I said, "We're going to open one.
"Let's do it with me and my brother", then we decided to you know, travel like the coast, like Beaufort, like she said and you know, look at some of the places along the Gullah traditional area and that's when we decided to open one down here.
♪ Well, they love our crab legs.
We do our crab legs a little different.
We do the old school steam pot, like my grandmother used to do, and a lot of restaurants now they do it like in a steam bag and it sort of sogs down the crab legs, but we do it where it keeps the meat nice and plump, so it's a difference, so when people try it they always say there's a difference with your crab legs., and our garlic butter is something me and my brother came up with after making mistakes and going back and forth and we found like a good consistency on the garlic butter which everybody loves.
>> My favorite dish, we do the Gullah rice.
My Gullah rice, really consists of jerk chicken, shrimp and our was special seasoning with the garlic butter and everyone just, they love it, and I do the seafood mac and cheese, and then I do my cole slaw, which is very special.
It's just simple recipes, but the cole slaw, I mean, it's out of sight.
<Craig> When we first opened up, a lot of people thought we was fast food.
So when they would come in, they would have short patience saying, "Well, my food is not ready, it's not ready yet?
", but we cook everything from scratch.
So, it's just, it took us a long time, but now we get into people, we let them know everything is freshly cooked.
So, now they're tasting the food and saying, "Wow, this food is really good.
", and the reason why it's good because we're taking our time.
Everything's from scratch, original recipes and everything.
<customer> It's a big deal for the town because we didn't have many options that were not fast food options.
So, we know this is a family business, and we know that they did a lot of research of the Gullah community.
You get big platters of food.
It's not skimpy.
It's priced right?
It's Gullah Gullah.
<Craig> When we was trying to make up some of the recipes, she was like, "No, it needs a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
So, working together, you know, we got to consistencies, and we're actually working towards a cookbook, and, you know, it's with her recipes, and with me and my brother coming together on it everything is coming together, you know, like I can't be more happier with what's going on.
♪
