Critic's Review
I've been thinking about Jambalaya lately, and I don't have much confidence that Shuck N Dive's is going to impress me. Not that I thought that the Davie Ale House version would impress me either, but at least it's cheap.
The service at this location is terrible. It started badly, as there is no hostess, except there's no way to know that until after you've been waiting and waiting for someone to show up. No sign of a server. One guy waiting just went to the bar, I just sat down and hoped that someone noticed. Nobody came out for 10 more minutes.
It did give me a chance to check out all of the menus. They have a summer special of a Lobster roll for $10.99 which tempted me; but I stuck with the jambalaya. The one positive service event of the day was that the iced tea came out right away.
Music here isn't bad, and they had news on the TVs; but I find a teenager who calls everyone "sweetheart" to be even more annoying that when an old lady does it; but the worst part of this place is that no matter where you sit, you have to overhear the loud Air Conditioner guys at the bar try to make sense of world events.
The food came out after 15 painful minutes.
It looked better than I expected; I expected a soupy mess. This was more organized. The bread was nothing more than toast; not worth the calories. As for the Jambalaya, this is the kind of stuff that people who've never had jambalaya before will tell you is "so good"; but for me the lack of authenticity irked me. Red onions, green pepper strips, sausage that wasn't andouille and a lack of spice just made it very ordinary; more like a bowl of rice with stuff in it. A little tomato sauce (or more tomatoes) and some Tony Chachere's would have made it a lot better. South Floridians might just load it up with tabasco, but I never go there.
My server ridiculed me for not finishing it and asking to take 1/3 of it home, as if not wanting to have 1500 calories for lunch was some sort of nerd's game.
She left the check and didn't return for 10 minutes, leaving me to stew at the table with my leftovers and further learn about life from the A/C guys. I just kept thinking that I should have had the lobster roll.