To highlight the point, Bobinchuck disappears briefly behind the swinging door to the kitchen and bursts forth with a four-foot-long whole fresh Mahi in one hand and a wiggling live Maine lobster in the other. “We do everything from scratch,” said Bobinchuck’s wife Daisy. Meats are hand-cut on the kitchen’s own band saw. Whole potatoes are peeled nightly for mashing, lettuces arrive in whole heads, and cheese comes in large wheels. Staples such as eggs, flour, sugar, rice, and grains are the foundation for many great dishes. The Catch 22 pantry and refrigerator are packed with whole foods. If it has been processed elsewhere and travels a distance to me, it may have lost a lot of what makes it great.” Once an ingredient is exposed to air, it blossoms and begins to show its colors immediately. “I ask my purveyors, ‘Where did this come from?’ ‘Where did you get this?’ I buy everything whole, which means it’s naturally vacuum-packed. “Whether local or from elsewhere, I only buy the crème de la crème,” he said. Pasta with local shrimp, crab, and scallops with bucatini pasta and a lemon tarragon cream is made with seafood so fresh it was still swimming just a short time before being delivered by the fishing captains themselves.īobinchuck describes his relationships with his purveyors with intensity. The lucky investigator will find the freshest produce, selected several times a week at the Columbia Farmers Market, in an heirloom baby tomato salad. Imagine an entrée of bone-in filet mignon, encrusted in gorgonzola, served over herb roasted red bliss potatoes, with sautéed baby spinach and rosemary demi-glace or an appetizer of local oysters Rockefeller stuffed with applewood bacon, spinach, and onion. The menu reveals a never-ending story of seasonality and creativity, with selections that punctuate the kitchen’s attention to quality. As one of Catch 22’s four owners, Bobinchuck has created a selection of offerings that balances the sea and the land, incorporating only the absolute freshest ingredients. The stories to be uncovered on the Catch 22 menu have been masterfully written by Chef Bryan Bobinchuck, and curious investigators will find delicious details about the ingredients and creativity that goes into his eclectic menu. Bear with me, because there is ample evidence to make this comparison at Catch 22 on Hilton Head Island, where the menu is filled with delightful mysteries to be uncovered and where the venue provides evenings that are comfortable and oh so wonderfully surprising. If you are not a foodie, you may be scratching your head saying, there is no way that Earnest Hemingway and Julia Child could be compared as storytellers. There are mysteries, intrigue, and surprise endings. True foodies read cookbooks like novels and menus like investigative journalists.