Edmund’s Original: A Good Reputation, Badly Overcooked

There are disappointing meals, and then there are meals that are disappointing precisely because you know the restaurant can do better and that is certainly Edmund’s Original.

The restaurant is the former Edmund’s Oast Restaurant, now operating as Edmund’s Original. I had eaten well at Edmund’s Oast before, so I came into this dinner with considerable goodwill. We were also dining with a group, and one of our guests is friends with one of the owners. We expected a great meal, good company, and an opportunity to revisit a Charleston restaurant I had enjoyed in the past. Instead, we got a meal that started with considerable promise and then deteriorated into one kitchen failure after another.

A Very Promising Start

The appetizers were easily the best part of the savory meal. We started with the Dim Sum Shrimp Toast with sesame and sour soy and the Roasted Shishitos and Okra with dashi salt and lemon.

The shrimp toast was excellent. The shishitos and okra were even better. They were fresh, bright, flavorful, and probably my favorite savory dish of the evening. Both starters leaned a little heavily on the salt, but at this point that seemed like a minor criticism.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be foreshadowing.

When Salt Stops Being Seasoning

We ordered a number of sides for the table, and this was where the inconsistencies began to become impossible to ignore.

The Mac N’ Peas had curry seasoning but were inexplicably, almost aggressively sweet.

The Black Garlic Green Beans were worse, with an oily, unpleasantly strong flavor and far too much salt.

The curly fries were perfectly acceptable fries except, once again, they were oversalted.

The Crispy Garlic Potatoes were the exception. They were genuinely good and easily the best of the shared sides.

The loaded baked potato was basic but fine.

The restaurant currently offers all of these as shareable sides. By this point, however, salt was no longer enhancing the food. It was overwhelming it.

The Mains Go Downhill

The burger was probably the most acceptable of the entrées, although even it was cooked well beyond the temperature ordered.

The fried chicken seemed to fare better and was acceptable to the person eating it.

We also tried the Mushrooms + Rice Noodles with grilled chicken. On paper, this should have been another flavorful dish, with onions, peas, cilantro, and basil joining the mushrooms and noodles. Instead, it was surprisingly bland, and the rice noodles were underdone. Once again, the problem was not the concept of the dish. It sounded good. The kitchen simply did not execute it properly.

The Pork Skirt Steak should have been a terrific dish as well. The menu pairs it with farro, shiitakes, maitakes, and black garlic jus. The farro and mushrooms underneath the pork were actually quite tasty. Unfortunately, the pork itself was so overcooked and oversalted that it was essentially inedible. That would ordinarily have been the low point of the meal.

It wasn't.

The Filet Mignon Debacle

Two of us ordered the 8-ounce Filet Mignon, currently listed at $56 and identified on the menu as DemKota Ranch beef. Both were ordered medium rare. First, they did not arrive with everyone else's entrées. The rest of the table received their food. The sides arrived. We waited. More than ten minutes later, the two filets finally appeared, which meant that even if the steaks had been wonderful, we were now eating them with sides that had gone cold. They were not wonderful.

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Both steaks were badly overcooked and remarkably tough. Whatever cuts of beef were on our plates bore little resemblance in texture or tenderness to any filet mignon I have previously eaten. Neither of us finished our steak. Then there was the seasoning. One filet had so much salt that it was virtually impossible to eat. The other seemed to have no seasoning at all. Two orders of the same steak, ordered to the same temperature, arriving together from the same kitchen, and somehow the kitchen managed to produce completely different seasoning mistakes while substantially overcooking both of them. That is not a matter of personal preference. It is a failure of execution and quality control.

To the restaurant's credit, both filets were removed from the bill.

The Server Wasn't the Problem

Our server was nice throughout the evening and seemed vaguely embarrassed by what was happening in the kitchen. I certainly did not get the impression that the problems with this meal originated with the front of the house. The restaurant appropriately comped the two disastrous filets, and I give them credit for doing so. But there is only so much a pleasant server can do when the food coming out of the kitchen is this inconsistent.

Dessert Offers Some Redemption

We finished with two desserts, and thankfully the meal ended considerably better than it had progressed through most of dinner. We tried the Classic Tiramisu and the Chocolate Cake with chocolate truffle icing and chocolate buttercream. Both were quite good.

The beverage side of Edmund’s Original also remains a strength. There is a substantial selection of house-brewed beers along with cocktails, wine, and nonalcoholic choices. I was perfectly happy with a decent glass of iced tea.

The Verdict

What makes this dinner particularly disappointing is that there were glimpses of a much better restaurant throughout the evening. The shrimp toast was excellent. The shishitos and okra were fresh and delicious. The farro beneath the pork was tasty. The crispy garlic potatoes were good. Dessert was good. Our server was nice. The ideas were there. The execution was not. Too many dishes were oversalted. Other dishes were strangely under-seasoned or poorly balanced. Multiple proteins were overcooked. The rice noodles were underdone. The burger missed its requested temperature. The two most anticipated entrées at our table arrived substantially later than everyone else's food, and both were so badly cooked that the restaurant ultimately removed them from the bill.

A restaurant can have a bad night. A steak can occasionally miss its temperature. A cook can get heavy-handed with salt. Noodles can stay in the pot thirty seconds too little. But when undercooking, overcooking, inconsistent seasoning, poor balance, and bad timing all occur during the same meal, across multiple dishes, they stop looking like isolated mistakes and start looking like a kitchen without adequate quality control that evening. That is especially difficult to reconcile with my previous experiences at Edmund’s Oast. I know this restaurant is capable of better because I have eaten better food here before. I went to Edmund’s Original expecting to rediscover an old favorite. Instead, I left wondering what happened to it. I believe their usually wonderful chef had the night off and they have no one in the kitchen to execute his menu when he's gone. What a shame.