Text 18093, 71 rader
Skriven 2011-11-22 01:55:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: don't eat here 234
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My brother wanted to go out to eat; fine. I told him
to choose the place, with the stipulation that it be
reasonable in price. As our conversation was held at
oh dark hundred, he had 10 hours to pick a place.
We went our separate ways, and when we reconnected,
he asked me where we were going? I reminded him,
slightly testily, that I was pinning the task on him
this time. He went online and investigated for a
couple hours (!) before coming up with Phillips Seafood
in the Legacy Hotel. Remember that I asked for a
modest-priced place, but whatever.

He took a couple wrong turns getting there, and we were
a bit late getting to our reservation. No problem, the
place was wide open. It should be a red flag when a
restaurant is sparsely populated on Saturday night.

He started off on the wrong foot by talking exceedingly
loud about his issues; to give him credit, he shut up
nicely when told to use his indoor voice. I started off
on the right foot by ordering a Phillips amber ale,
which has to be made by Dominion (which is no longer in
Virginia but Delaware); reasonable but not overbearing
hoppiness, good flavor, not enough alcohol for 5.50/pt.

Our fortunes reversed, though, with the food. Jonathan
had the broiled trout with Thai green curry sauce on the
side; it was pretty decent though overcooked, and the
sauce was palatable and helped moisten things up a bit.
I never learn - I had the fried seafood platter, in which
everything is done but nothing is done well; only at the
best restaurants does everything come out just right. I
figured that for $27 I ought to get something good; well,
wrong. It was advertised, if I read right, as colossal
lump crabcake, shrimp, and flounder. From left to right:
indeed the crab lumps were very big, the cake itself quite
small. The lumps came from a crab that had last swum in
Myanmar or someplace - there was little resemblance between
the meat and that of the Atlantic blue crab. Whoever had
made the mixture had put in altogether too much egg and
altogether too much mustard, so even if the meat had been
wonderful to start with, it wouldn't have been by the time
it got to me. Six 26/30 shrimp, butterflied, coated in a
batter and then crumbs, then frozen. Like Gorton's, only
not quite so good. If I scraped the coating off, I could
taste a little shrimp. Last but not least, the "flounder"
was a split regular fish (not a flatfish), very oily and
rather fishy, somewhat overfried in an effort to cover up
the crime, but soggy all the same. Pretty amazing, the
best parts of the platter were the (battered) French fries
and the (slightly over the hill) cole slaw. The best and
worst were yet to come.

Our slightly overbearing waitress tried hard to sell us on
dessert and more beer. I was happy to plead fatigue and an
early flight.

The worst: the bill. I could have bought a pound of Kobe
or ten pounds of decent USDA Choice sirloin for this amount.

The best: some square hard candies came out with the bill.
I had a pink one (some guavalike flavor, very good) and a
blue one (the flavor used to be called "ice mint"; I don't
know what it's called nowadays. Further, it was produced
on equipment that must have come in contact with pink flavor,
so that added a layer of intriguingness).

Phillips Seafood: don't go there! or if you do, just steal
some candy from the jar by the cashier and run away.
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