Monday, June 25, 2012

Fish Tales, Longwood - Closed

I had lunch at this seafood restaurant on 434 near I-4 in the strip mall where the original Terra Mia is (they seem to be closed for lunch of the weekend) last Friday. I had a shrimp Po' Boy for $9. It was the cheapest thing on the menu. One thing I hate almost as much as high priced, mediocre Italian is high priced, mediocre Seafood. The bun was stale. It had visible streaks of what I like to call white mold. I'm not sure if it is mold, but, it is a sign of stale bread. Not that the bun was probably top notch to begin with. The shrimp seemed frozen. They (8) were very mushy. The coating was ok. It came with "half and half" fries. I say "half and half" because half were fried and half were undercooked. I've heard this happens if you fry cold/frozen fries before they defrost. It seems to be an epidemic. Can no one tell they aren't done when they lift the basket? It happens everywhere. Drop them back in the damn grease! I'll wait. It also came with a ramekin of mayonaise based cole slaw. It was fine. The service (3 on duty) was fine. Pleasant and informative. The place is a little weird looking. It has three areas. The front area is a little sparse. It has some a wooden floor and maritime decoration. The bar has a loungy, blue light counter top. They said it was put in by this owner. It is totally gauche and out of step with the other interior decorating. It takes up most of that room. There are some high tops around the perimeter and an area for live music. The lights were off for some reason. I hope it wasn't to flaunt the neon.The room I ate in was three toned (orange, green and yellow) with a black ceiling. You can say that this melange either gives you three unique dining environs or you can say nobody thought this through. The place seats around 70. It was a sushi and an Italian dinner theater spot (Pal Joey's) in a previous life. They didn't wow me and neither did this place. It's fine if your idea of fine dining is where the locals go after playing a round on the public golf course. The prices are all around $20 and I would have no faith that you are getting fresh seafood for the price. I would also bet that the person cooking the food has had no formal training. It's the kind of place Gordan Ramsey would go to and find a myriad of issues to blow his top over. It has been open for a month. Since it is so hidden and the value proposition is low. I wouldn't expect it to be open long. Yet, it was only one po' boy and I am assuming alot. Try it and let me know if my presumptions were right. I have nothing against the owner or the place. She seemed nice. I don't want to get into one of those pissy tiffs like the guy from Finesse (now closed as predicted) wanted to initiate. I'm scared she chose one of those terrible locations and hard food categories that just kill businesses. I wanted to say there is no happy ending to this Fish Tale, but, I won't. It would be too precious.

1 comment:

steprous said...

Hey Orlandoer, we really love your blog and we have a small group of all the Orlando area restaurant bloggers and would like to invite you to be involved but I can't find your email address or anything. the name is Orlando Restaurant Food Bloggers on Facebook if you'd like to do a search for it and request membership and I'll approve you. It's just to discuss privately new restaurants, events, sneak previews, stuff like that