Critic's Review
Pelican Landing was closed all summer as the "Pier 66" marina underwent a $20M renovation. The Hyatt's web page is wildly uninformative, but on FB they were touting a "renovated" Pelican Landing. With the Boat show over, it was an opportunity to check it out.
On a cloudy, windy 70-something day I hit the docks, initially forgetting exactly how to find the place. You pull into the Hyatt Parking like, grab a ticket, and park as far west as you can go. Make a left at the dock and head towards the bridge.
At the end of the section, the bridge will be on the right. You want to make a left.
Walk down the long, concrete dock and you'll see Pelican Landing at the end. You'll notice a lot more really big boats; the renovation was designed to allow more super-yachts to doc in the marina. Virtually all of the boats are gi-normous.
From the dock, the only thing that looks different is the logo on the side. One thing about my last visit was that the stairway up to the restaurant was filty; it looks like they just power washed it as much of the gunk remains. $20M and they can't paint the steps?
Supposedly they've renovated the interior, but it was hard to tell. There were a bunch of maintenance guys hanging out in there, and all customers were outside. I don't see any reason to walk all the way out to the end of a dock and then sit inside at the bar.
Outside is quite disappointing. They have cheap patio furniture. It's not nearly as nice as it was before. The wood furniture is poorly maintained, and they didn't have the umbrellas opened; I'm wondering if they were broken. They used to have nice place mats, which are now gone.
The view is still pretty nice. It's one of the great waterfront spots in Fort Lauderdale.
The first sign of trouble was when I tried to order an iced tea. "Would you like lemonade or a soda"?, she asked. Not getting the gist. "No, I want Iced tea". They don't have it. I didn't want a beer, so I just ordered a seltzer. It comes in a plastic cup with a garnish of lime; you can't squeeze a little slice of lime, so why bother?
I'm going to guess that the filtered hotel water line doesn't run out to the restaurant, because the seltzer tasted like bath water. When you carbonate bad water you get bad seltzer.
The menu is also disappointing; it's weaker than the previous menu they had here. Fewer choices; they've downscaled the menu while raising or maintaining the prices. $15 for a burger and they've removed the oysters, skirt steak and chicken dish. I decided on the Conch Chowder and an appetizer called "Ropa Vieja Smothered Tostones". Remember that.
I asked that the soup come out separately, because my server didn't bother to ask my preference.
When I first got there (around 1:45), there was no music at all. At 1:59 someone decided to turn it on, debuting with Sumudu's "On My Shoulders". It got slightly better, with "Lonesome Dreams", "Misery" and "Monsters". There are no seagulls here providing "Keow-Keow" for beach ambiance.
The conch came out with a boatload of plantain chips; I was thankful they weren't in the soup. The menu says it comes with oyster crackers; they've been open a week and they're already off the menu.
They use bacon, which is unusual; bacon is used to flavor Clam Chowders but is rarely used in Conch Chowder. The soup was a bit bland and didn't really taste like conch chowder; it wasn't spicy and was more like a minestrone.
There were bits of conch (I'm guessing), but they were so small I couldn't really taste them. A $5 bowl of soup for $8.
I was done for a while before the next course came out. Something that I noticed is that not one person at nearby tables was able to get the drink that they wanted. A lot of people drinking Coors Light bottles and eating burgers.
When my server put it in front of me she ask "How does that look". I don't believe I answered, because it wasn't what I expected.
To me, "smothered tostones" means that they are covered; I expected mini nachos with ropa vieja topping the tostones. I suppose I could have made them myself, but the tostones were like cardboard. Tostones are only good when they are freshly made, and these were cold and probably revived from frozen.
The ropa was also badly contrived; Ropa Vieja is braised meat, usually flank steak, but this "sauce" didn't seem natural . It was gloopy, as if they added a thickener to it. Cilantro and cheese don't belong either. It's sort of a Mexicanized version of the dish created at the Culinary Institution.
I reluctantly picked at the Ropa while trying each Tostone, hoping that 1 of them would be soft on the inside; but no luck. I did have a bit of unexpected company.
I've never seen a Pelican in Fort Lauderdale; I think that the whole thing is a tourist trick.
I asked for my check as I got a refill on the seltzer; one more look at the view before heading out.
They do validate parking, so make sure you present your ticket to your server when you pay the bill. This is a hotel restaurant so they'll ask if you want to charge it to your room as well if you're staying there.
Just hand the validated ticket at the gate and your out free of charge.
Conclusion
I was disappointed in a couple of things; first that the "renovations" yielded virtually no difference, and the second is that this isn't a very good restaurant or bar. It's a lot like a lot of boat stops, where the best you can hope for is to have a beer and a burger and enjoy the view. They serve the same overreaching fare as every other place in town; you certainly don't come here for the food.
Review 6/4/11
Pelican Landing is a casual eatery located at the end of a dock at the Hyatt Pier 66 Hotel. It's one of those places that people often call a "hidden gem", mainly because it's so hard to find. It's certainly not a place you'd go randomly; you have to know about it. There are few other places in Fort Lauderdale where you can feel like you're somewhere very far away, even though you can see E17th street from the deck.
Frankly, the surrounding area is a bit rough; the building itself could use a power washing and the stairs may not have been cleaned since Connie Francis was a hot babe. Once you get upstairs, It's a pretty nice place. To get here isn't all that intuitive; hotel parking lots are challenging enough without having to find your way to remote locations on huge properties. If you check Satellite view on the map below you can get an idea of where it is relative to the hotel. You need to drive to the west end of the lot, walk west on the dock until you hit the intracoastal and then turn right and go to the end of the dock.
Upstairs, there's a bar with a bunch of good TVs and a patio. On a nice day, outside is the way to go. You can't beat the view.
They have a small menu with some apps and a few entrees, but there are quite a few good choices. I didn't want a burger (although they had a pretty good one at the Burger Battle), and I almost bit on the skirt steak. But the Jamaican BBQ wings caught my eye, and they had Oysters on the Half Shell for only $8. I ordered both of those, and a Mich Ultra to sip on while I waited for the food. I had to wait a bit for a server; they tended not to come over until I was looking at them and in obvious need of something. I settled in with the beer and just took in the tranquility.
It's usually a bit windy here since you're really sitting in the middle of the bay, but when it's 88 degrees the wind keeps you at a reasonable temperature. The food was ready pretty quickly.
The oysters were nicely presented and just perfect; the sauce was a mild cocktail sauce that was fine although it could have had a bit more bite. The miniature lemon slice is becoming a trend; places seem to be getting very cheap with fruit. It was barely enough but it's annoying having to squeeze the daylights out of the tiny slice to juice the 6th oyster.
I had asked the server if the wings were spicy and he said yes, but they didn't have much heat. They were pretty good and they came with a good blue cheese dip, but more sweet than hot. The wings were small and boney; it was a light snack but they wouldn't have been enough without the oysters.
Service wasn't bad, but not as good as expected considering that there wasn't much of a crowd. It was the little things that I found annoying here; they didn't have oyster forks and it's just nicer to eat clams and oysters with little forks rather than big clunky ones. They didn't give me extra napkins with the wings and they didn't have wet naps. Little service things that don't matter much in the big picture but that make the experience a little bit nicer.
Considering your other choices in this area, this is a great little lunch or happy hour spot that's not too far away or hard to get to. They validate your parking, so there's really no reason not to check it out sometime when you just feel like something different.
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