Trip to South Florida

I wanted to post some thoughts from my trip to South Florida to visit family and friends. I managed to get out and eat at quite a few different places and thought I would let you know some of what I observed. Despite being in a great location to get fresh seafood and produce, I was not overly impressed with any of the places I ate, I thought that I have had better food in Cleveland. Now I will admit that I was in Boca Raton and not Miami, but given all we have heard I expected better. I was especially surprised to see the amount of clams and lobsters brought in from New England on so many menus; why not use what is local and fresh? I ate at a couple of chain restaurants and while they were pretty good, I still prefer to find locally owned restaurants and to support them. We had dinner one night at Carrabba's Italian Grill http://www.carrabbas.com/index.aspx which has locations in the Cleveland area in Brooklyn and Westlake. We started with Calamari which was a big portion of well fried pieces with marinara. Well overall good, I found it to be a bit boring and I like my squid. The Caesar salad was overdressed, but the dressing was good. I had the Linguini Pescatore, which is mussels, shrimp and scallops in a spicey marinara sauce over linguini noodles. While the pasta and sauce were good, I found that the shrimp and scallops, while big, were a bit overcooked; the mussels were the best part of the dish. Overall my impression of Carrabbas was that it was a nice place and the food was pretty good and reasonably priced, but it just seemed to lack any real flair. I also had dinner at a true Florida institution, Hooters http://www.hooters.com/. While always subject to ridicule, I have liked Hooters when they were located in Mentor. Unfortunately the closest locations now are in Toledo or Columbus. I actually find Hooters to have pretty good food, especially the seafood. I have enjoyed the fish sandwhich many times and this time I had the Daytona Shrimp, which were an interesting and tasty take on BBQ shrimp. As always the place is fun and the scenery is good. We did manage to hit some different ethnic spots. We ate at a nice Cuban restaurant in Deerfield Beach called Little Havana http://www.littlehavanarestaurant.com/. I had a good time visiting with friends, drinking some fruity rum drink and enjoying some well prepared seafood and rice. Makes me wish we had a Cuban restaurant around C-Town. We also went to one of the popular chinese restaurants in the area, the Silver Pond in Lauderdale Lakes (see a review here). The restaurant was busy and we had to wait for about 1/2 hour. In the end while the food was good, it seemed a bit unseasoned to me and I thought that it does not measure up to the food we get at many of the places in Cleveland's Asiatown, including Bo Loong. Glad to be back in Ohio and once Passover is over I will try to get some new reviews up; till then everyone have a good Passover, a Happy Easter or just an enjoyable start to Spring.