Grouper and More-Can it get any Worse?

May 13, 2008

Grouper and More

4932 New Broad Street, Orlando

Baldwin Park

For those of you that live in or around Baldwin Park, you have probably been waiting patiently for the many promised restaurants to open, only to find that many of the “Coming Soon” signs have been replaced with “Available.” One of the first to open at the newer water area, Grouper and Chips was a casual walk-up Fish-n-Chips style place that promised fresh fish and seafood at reasonable prices. It was a casual place with various Marilyn Monroe memorabilia on the wall and plenty of outside patio eating. They soon switched to a slightly different format, changing their name to Groupers and More, slightly expanding their menu and “upgrading” their decor. What is unfortunate is that despite the new (rather generic) look, they did not change the one thing they needed too–the quality of their food.

I grew up in a coastal city–Jacksonville, where hole-in-the-wall fish places thrive. You may be eat on vinyl tablecloths and out of plastic baskets, but the one thing you can always count on from most of these places is fresh fish and seafood, and reasonable prices. There is nothing like this in Orlando. To get really good seafood, you have to pay the price and eat at Fishbones or Beluga or some of the higher end seafood places, or just buy it from Lobardi’s Seafood Market and make it yourself. There are no places to get good fresh “baskets” of fried fish and seafood. And if you are thinking of Shells or Boston Fish house neither of them come close.

So you can imagine my excitement at the possibility of a decent casual fish place opening! But every time we go there it is a disappointment and instead of improving they have only gotten worse. We ate their a few times when it was Grouper and Chips and the food was OK. The batter they use on their fried fish was quite heavy (think Captain D’s), so their fried food was quite greasy, and their broiled and blackened food was quite bland. They had a pretty good bouillabaisse, but at $20, not really worth the price.

The nail hit the coffin for us the last time we found ourselves eating there. It was 11:30a.m. on a Sunday and we were in the Baldwin Park area with our 2 1/2 year old son. Our favorite pizza place (Pizzeria Valdiano’s) is closed on Sunday and we didn’t want to wait for Seito Sushi or Calibri’s Mexican Restaurant to open so we thought we would give one last go at Grouper and More.

We started off with the hush puppies, which were brought out to us not by our waitress, but by someone who worked in the kitchen. I took one look at them and brought them back to the counter–they were burnt–a nice blackish-brown. My waitress who was there apologized and put in another order which soon came out a nice golden color like you would expect them to be. Unfortunately, they were doughy from not being cooked all the way through. Yuck.

Since neither my husband or I was up for the grease, we both decided to get something that wasn’t fried. I ordered the blackened grouper salad and he ordered the crab cakes. My son got a grilled cheese from the kids menu. I wish I would’ve taken a picture of my salad when it came out. It was pathetic. It looks like some bagged salad was thrown on a plate with an obviously frozen piece of fish covered in blackened seasoning that I had a hard time believing it was actually grouper. It was small with small flakes and very thin, like a smaller fish similar to tilapia. It was definitely not the large, thick white flesh that I expect from grouper. And the taste? Well, I’ve had better meals that I have heated up in boxes that came from my freezer. It was bland, mushy, and the salad was lettuce with some boxed croutons. All for the low, low price of $12.95! My husband crab cakes looked a little better if you ignored their char on the outside. They could have easily been frozen too. In fact, the ones I get in the grocery freezer actually have more, lumpier crab in them and taste better and they don’t cost $18.95 for 2! Both my husband and I picked at our food, and started eye-balling our sons grilled cheese when he decided he didn’t want to eat it. It was actually pretty good. My husband and I ate part of that. So we managed to pay over $40 for a grilled cheese and fries. Oh yeah.

I’m actually looking forward to this place finally closing, so maybe a better restaurant will replace it. What is scary to me is the amount of people I still see eating there. Now, I know downtown Baldwin Park still has many a restaurant to open, but there are quite a few other much better alternatives out there. In fact, Subway makes a great tuna sandwich, and you will be much happier with the bill.

Posted in Restaurant Reviews