Lauren M.
Yelp
We are in Islamorada in June. It is definitely the off season, which I appreciate. I'm going to go on vacation and enjoy the heat no matter where I am, so might as well go to Islamorada during the off season.
We had reservations at this restaurant at 7pm, knowing that sunset was a little after 8, and we got there 15 min early and was seated. For a restaurant on the beach, it was completely outside with tables on a deck and directly on the beach, I was surprised they didn't have any fans around. I've been to outside restaurants before and almost all have had fans. This place had these tiny table fans to "keep the flies away" which honestly didn't work anyway, cause once our dinner was brought, all we did was shoo flies away.
The food - very good. We had the snapper ceviche and chopped salads as appetizer and we finished them all. Then we had the daily catch - hogfish - prepared lightly fried and it was delicious. Another entree was the lobster linguini- very good, though a bit heavy for a beach dish (not taking off points for this, we need some belly filling meals!) 4.5 stars for the food.
I had a pineapple coconut margarita. It was good. I drank it. I enjoyed it. My friend had the kiwi gin smash. She said although it had a decent flavor, it had so many seeds and mint in it that you couldn't drink it (straw or sip& without a mouth full of it. They need to strain it. I hope they normally strain the drink and we were there on an off night . My other friend (the DD) had a virgin strawberry daiquiri. It was a very icy drink, vice being smooth- perhaps cause it took a long time to get to our table. Drinks were 2.5 out of 5.
The service was ehhh. Like I said, it was the off season, so I'm not sure how experienced our waiter was. The food runner was lovely but totally admitted it was her first day, but other than confusing a table number once, she was great. It took a long time for our drinks, despite not being many people there. Our waiter did not check in at all between getting our appetizers and clearing our dinner plates. I would have ordered another drink (or 2) and my friend would have ordered a different one had we been checked in on by our waiter. The waiter was super nice, the food runner was super nice and the people filling our water glasses and clearing tables were super nice. So- all in all- the staff was super nice! But it would have been nice to be checked in on! It took even longer to get our check. I would give the service a 2.5 out of 5.
The "fly fans" were a hot commodity. As soon as they took away our food, someone asked for the fan. For a place on the water that should be used to this, I would expect to either have fans in the corners blowing around or at leafy have a fan for each table. There was umbrella shade at the different tables to enjoy- you could move your chair to be out of the sun if needed or have your back to it, but I seriously don't understand the lack of fans.
Lastly, the sunset was beautiful. We asked for the check 15 min before the sunset and it took that long to get the check! I was able to sneak away for some pics befor me the sun went down. My friend joined me after she paid check, after the sun went down.
Overall I am giving it a 3 out 5. The food was delicious and the sunset view was amazing. But then you had the flies, no fans, and slow service and okay drinks to consider.