Critic's Review
I haven't been to Delray in a while, so on a Sunny Saturday afternoon I took the pleasant 27 mile drive and found a prime parking spot right on Atlantic Avenue. I was going to try El Camino, a new place just opened by the group that owns Cut 432; but they had no power so they weren't serving food. I noticed that this place was open for lunch.
They have a few tables on the sidewalk, but it seemed a bit cramped, so I opted to sit in the largely empty dining room. There's still a pretty good view, without the wind or the prospect of passers by bumping into your table.
They have a big bar inside on the west side,and table on the east side.
The "host" didn't give me a menu; I had to wait for a server to notice me and bring me a menu. I promptly ordered an iced tea with extra lemon; the tea, lemon and sweeteners required 3 visits.
The tea comes in a short glass, which when filled with ice doesn't hold much liquid. The result was a quickly empty glass.
They have a gimmicky thing here where you make your own hummus. She mashed it a little before dropping it on the table so I didn't get a handle on what ingredients were included. It just seemed like plain chick peas. It was all one color so did they leave out the tahini?
This gimmick fails because you simply can't mix hummus properly with a mortar and pestle. Hummus is an emulsion; it can't be made with a mortar and pestle properly. Also, I go to a restaurant so I don't have to make my own food; if they want to make it for me table side that's one thing, but I don't need to make it myself to prove that it's freshly made.
I ordered the Stuffed Peppers, which were said to be stuffed with meat and rice on the menu I had. The server informed me that the menu was wrong; there was no meat in the peppers. $14 for peppers and rice? No Thanks. So I shifted to The Opa Shrimp and the Naked Souvlaki Chicken.
They play Greek music. Its a pleasant environment.
When the food came out, I was immediately disappointed, surprised and appalled at the portion.
3 borderline jumbo shrimp for $12. If these were the best shrimp I'd ever had it would still be unacceptable; given all of the orange sauce and lemons the shrimp were surprisingly bland. Salting the water really help with shrimp. If you tried to argue that these shrimp cost $1 per it's still only a 25% portion; these were more like .75 shrimp which qualified this dish as bonafide highway robbery. This dish should have 4-5 of these sized shrimps; but it doesn't taste good, so don't order it.
The chicken shocked me as well.
Really? 1.5oz of chick is what, 70 cents? This is what I'd expect to get for free as a complimentary appetizer, not a $6 appetizer. Again surprisingly, it was short on seasoning and I had to ask for salt. It looked pretty good, but the souvlaki wasn't properly marinaded because none of the flavor had made it's way into the chicken. They also describe this as being served on a "bed of roasted peppers". Are they joking? One non-roasted pepper slice. Has the owner ever even been to one of these restaurants?
Supposedly they have dancing and belly dancing or something at night, so I guess that's the reason that this place has survived with multiple locations. I guess the entertainment makes up for the ridiculous food price to portion ratio. They've been open a couple of weeks and they've already raised some prices on their menu from the printed handout. $9 for a salad now.
I certainly can't recommend the place for lunch.
