Kenny D's in Miramar Beach, FL: Old-Fashioned Fried Goodness

Two friends of ours planned to invite a bunch of us to attend when they were going to get married in Gulf Shores, Alabama, but then found it too hard to find accommodations there during Spring Break season and switched to Desitin, Florida....  Whoa!  NOT Desitin; that was kind of rash, sorry-- it was Destin, Florida. So we all made plans to go there for the wedding, but then they decided to get married here in Indy so that certain important family members could attend, and thus the trip to Destin became a sort of communal week-long party honeymoon, with the wedding couple and some friends and family in a big rental house while The Little Woman and I shared a condo next door with another couple.  

I'm a cheap bastard, but on vacation I rather like to eat out every meal and let someone else do the cleaning up.  One guy in the Big House, however, fancies himself a gourmet chef (and we discovered he's not far wrong) while the female of our roommates and TLW love to set up housekeeping wherever we go and do some cookin', which they're perty danged good at, so we ate most meals at "home" or next door. We did manage to eat out at least once every other day, however, so I relished those occasions all the more 'cuz I LOVES me some adventure eatin'.

We first hit Pompano Joe's which is (like everything else in Miramar Beach) on Scenic Gulf Boulevard, a family friendly bar/restaurant which is right on the beach and epitomizes every touristy beach bar & grill you've ever seen or envisioned, with the de rigeur driftwood and surf board decor. The food was decent and not cheap but not outrageous, although the price of drinks was stiffer than the drinks themselves.  We did get a small pitcher of Yuengling for $9.50, though, so that wasn't too bad.   A dozen raw oysters on the half shell was $12.49, and for $11.49 we had the Oysters Rastafella, six baked oysters topped with spinach, cheddar-jack cheese and Parmesan bread crust that, alas, sounded better than they tasted (Uncle Bubba's in Savannah can still breathe easy knowing that their baked oysters are still DA BEARS as far as we're concerned). The ambiance of the place was nice and comfortable, though!

We walked about a mile up the road to The Whale's Tail, a small simple place that's also on the beach.  It was like 73 degrees and sunny out, although there was a breeze.  TLW and I were in shorts and t-shirts and were still burning up from our walk, I guess, but the restaurant staff were all dressed in long pants and sweat shirts, while one female patron in long jeans and a tank top was rubbing her arms for warmth and made her boyfriend go to the car and get her jacket.  Sheesh!  That's what Winter in the Mid-West will do to us, I suppose....  We both had Shrimp Po-boys, which were very good, the shrimp fried just right.  The price was decent, too, although I was shocked, SHOCKED to find that they don't serve oysters.

We took a drive toward Desitin proper (d'oh! Destin, sorry-- my typing a little rusty... and rough, and itchy), and stopped at a fancy-lookin' place called Captain Dave's or something like that, but it didn't open until 4:00, so we back-tracked a block to Kenny D's for lunch.  It's an old-fashioned diner-looking joint, all silver and neon on the outside but shaded by big palm trees.  There is an old phone booth outside by the walk (they still exist!) which had no phone but was maintained there apparently so patrons can autograph it (or maybe, as one of my buds opined, it was there so cell phone users could have a quiet place to talk on the phone and not disturb the crap out of the people around them.)  The indoor decor was very simple, with corrugated metal ceilings and just a few nautical items here and there-- I think I saw an oar on the wall somewhere, along with several Certificates of Appreciation from the Destin Snowbirds Association, which was I hoped was a good omen, an endorsement by the locals. 

The sign out front said "Best Burger on the Beach" but the menu lists a BUNCH of Cajun dishes of all kinds. Andre our waiter, a short, wiry man of about 30 in jeans and a t-shirt who looked he might have just retired  from the Thoroughbred Jockey circuit, was either Cajun or French by his heavy accent and outward air of indifference, although he turned out to be quite attentive in an unobtrusive way.  We had a dozen oysters on the half shell for $10.99 which were FANTASTIC.  I dunno how one restaurant's raw oysters can be any better than another's but these seemed fresher and juicier than others'.  She had a shrimp po-boy and I had an oyster po-boy, and they were both excellent-- possibly the best fried oysters I've ever had, lightly breaded and delicately fried.  A happy hour pitcher of domestic beer (Yuengling counts!) was, get this, $6.99!  Oh yeah, the fries with the sammiches were very good, too....  The flavor and portion size for the price were enough to warm an old $$ guy's heart!  Bon Appetit, y'all!

McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant: Good Food; Value, Not So Much.

We were going out for our 9th wedding anniversary, and a friend had very thoughtfully given us a sizable gift card to Oceanaire Restaurant, but we had eaten there several years ago and been sorta underwhelmed by the seafood and overwhelmed by the price tag, over $150 for the two of us. So when we saw on the back of the gift card that it was good for any Landry's-owned establishment, I checked out McCormick & Schmick's, 110 N. Illinois Street.  It's part of a chain, but there's only one in Indy, so I feel comfortable reviewing it.  The menu appeared a somewhat less expensive $$$ than Oceanaire's, and had much the same kind of food.  

I'm a $$ kind of guy, remember, so if you want me to fork over that additional $ ya better WOW me, and sadly, M&S did not.  It was good, mind you, it just wasn't $$$ good, especially since we had to come downtown and pay to park (although I think they do have valet parking available, so never mind the paying part).  I had the Ultimate Mixed Grill- grilled shrimp, stuffed shrimp, seared scallops, and a chunk of grilled salmon, with roasted red pepper mashed potatoes and green beans for $32.99.  Little Mama had the Shrimp Trilogy: fried shrimp, stuffed shrimp, and shrimp scampi with butternut squash orzo serving as the pasta for $26.99, and we split a $7.99 chopped side salad with blue cheese. 

The huge cup of blue cheese dressing that came with the salad and the orzo were the real highlights of the meal, not the seafood.  The orzo was freaking awesome, very plump and tasty, and the little cubes of squash made me thankfully forget I was eating squash.   The light buttermilk breading of the fried shrimp made it very tasty, too.  The grilled shrimp was overcooked, dry and tough, while the scallops and stuffed shrimp seemed underdone but tasted okay.  I know it's better to under cook than overcook scallops, but the very concept of "seared" implies that the top and bottom of the scallop ought to be browned just a bit, and these things were not browned at all-- they looked like they'd been broiled or baked.  Finally, the salmon, mashed potatoes, and green beans were decent but uninspiring.  With two glasses of wine our bill came in just under $100, and to me the bottom line is that Red Lobster is almost as good and a heck of a better value.  Oh yeah-- Mama always said to try to say something nice about everyone, so I will say the service was impeccable, not $$$ impeccable but DANGIT THERE I GO AGAIN, SORRY!