Simp McGhee's - Decatur, Alabama

Gary Gray - Put The Light In

My wife and I ate at Simp McGhee’s Wednesday, June 19th shortly after they opened. It was a mixed experience.

Appetizer: The crawfish eggrolls were wonderful. The veggies in them popped with flavor. They really do them right.

Main Course: I had redfish over fettuccine with some light sauce and veggies, it was very good. Elisa had petite filet and seasoned mashed potatoes which were
also very good.

However other aspects of this experience weren’t so good.

See the photo of the salad oil and whatever that dark stuff is? Look how filthy it is. I told my wife they need to pour that stuff into new containers each day and put the old one to wash! Good grief. If I owned a restaurant and my employees did something like that, I’d be absolutely livid! Never give a customer something so filthy!

But that’s not all.

I asked the waitress for virgin olive oil and some fresh lime or lemon juice with which I intended to make my salad dressing. She enthusiastically affirmed that she could do that. Then, she brought that atrocious stuff out. Look at that photo.

I asked her “is that olive oil?” she replied, “it’s olive oil” nodding her head in affirmation. I tasted it . Ugh! It was rancid old oil spoiled like it had too much heat or too much time. Obviously it was too old and it was not olive oil. Did she knowingly outright lie to me? I had her take the salad away since I poured oil on it and tasted it with my finger. Ugh!

The table.

This place has a wonderful ambiance. It’s an old two story house with oak tables and Windsor chairs. I had to roll my sleeves down because the table was terribly sticky. Yuk. Who wants to sit at a sticky table?

I don’t know if I want to go back there or not. The food was good except that atrocious rancid salad dressing in the filthy containers. If they treat those salad dressings and their containers that negligently, what else do they neglect?

Timmy Price

Much Wow! Walked in and was taken back a couple decades by the feel of the place. We were seated by the wall on an old hardwood table. The first thing I noticed, as two big men were seated there.... The table.... It didn't WOBBLE... At all. VERY odd. Almost old horror movie type disturbing... You'd expect it to wobble, and it didn't. We looked around, as of we were going to be murdered.. Jk.

We got an appetizer, Deep fried Green Beans. Amazing (the dipping sauce, much wow, get extra!)! We knew already what we wanted as I'd seen it described in a prior review of the joint. DEANS DELIGHT! It was scary for me to order, because it didn't say the price of it, only stated "Market Value". When I ordered the waitress said, how do you want your steak... Which I replied to, "It's Prime Rib, didn't think it mattered..." ?. Then she laid the big one on me... I don't know why they put that on there, it's a filet (It came out like a Big Chunk of Meat!)... In my mind, holy heck how expensive is this thing?!? Still ordered it, my friend did as well. I'll finish with saying, I cannot describe to you the tastes of the dish, as my tongue had no idea what to do or how to read it, but it was nothing short of out of this world!!! With that said, you'd be a fool to order anything else. The filet, perfect. The gulf shrimp, perfect. And the filler, bowtie pasta in a Cajun cream sauce... Even better. You will not be letdown. Oh, and back to the market value thing, the meal was 40 dollhairs at the time of this post. We left, fat and sassy. AND, I will go back again whenever in the area!

Leslie M

This place has a lovely upscale vibe and friendly staff. My friends liked their food but unfortunately mine was not that good. Overall I was pretty disappointed in this place so let me tell you why.

For appetizers we tried the fried crab claws which were okay, the batter wasn't that good, the tartar sauce was mainly mayonnaise with mustard seed. It was served on a plate of lettuce even though we told the waitstaff about the allergy.

We came here for the crawfish cheese sticks and were told that they didn't exist and had not for a very long time, now they are some sort of egg roll?

The entrees come with salad which my friends say were good, they looked fresh to me. I tried the andoullie grits which were fine and a bit spicy.

I personally had the lobster ravioli and shrimp which was recommend by the waitress, but unfortunately it turned out being awful. The dish was not as described as they added squash and bell peppers to the blurre blanc. On top of that, the onions that were in the beurre blanc were black and burnt making the entire sauce disgusting and bitter. The shrimp that came with the dish were way over cooked and tough to eat. The inside filling was completely bland. For the price they're charging it was an absolute disgrace.

I tried the grilled tuna which seemed to have a steak seasoning on it, it was actually quite delicious and tasted like steak. The let down to the dish was that it was suppose to have carrot and shallots but there was just a few small savings on the green beans.

As for the Pontchartrain, my friend enjoyed it, I didn't personally try it. The shrimp and fish looked cooked correctly. But as the reigning theme here, they added rice to the bottom of the dish and that was not stated on the menu.

I did try three of the drinks, the blueberry lemon drop was very good and sweet. The tropical dream was okay but also had the wrong ingredients in it as they added either a orange or mango juice that was not in the description. Lastly we tried the momma's cool aid which was also tasty and very sweet.

Julia B.

In town for business and came here on a recommendation. It was actually the second choice but the first choice was closed and I am glad because the service was good, the drinks were fantastic and the food was delicious. Everything tasted great and I will return when I am back in town.

Georgia Gordon-Knab

The food was fantastic. Our waitress was kind, friendly. We were downstairs across from the bar. She explained that upstairs that's where the white table cloths were for special occasions. Really we still had a good time.

Beverly Dean

Friday night had live music. Was a bit loud for conversation downstairs. I understand upstairs is quieter and easier for conversation. Food was excellent. Charcuterie board came in sets of 4 and we had 5 in our party but we managed.

Paul Sigston

Neat place....nest ambiance. Our service and waiter was great! They do not know how to cook prime rib though. Drinks and other options were good, but not the prime rib.

Mark Ferreira

Great food, little pricey but great. Nice decor, two floors, upstairs a little loud due to metal ceiling and echo conversations. Nice bar.