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| - Wow, I almost feel bad commenting after two 5 star reviews, but this place isn't great. This is not a 5 star restaurant, and it's not just me, the others we were with agreed. I'll recount my experience and you can judge for yourself. If you don't want the details, here is the summary - Their menu is too large for them to do anything well. Lots of variety but everything is just mediocre. You see this in Restaurant Makeover all the time and I never really got it until I came here. There are some gems in the menu, but overall not impressive.
The Scenario:
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Ok, we were there with 35 some odd people. Basically we had the entire back covered patio area. They had to pull in patio furniture and all that, but I appreciate they did what they needed to do to accommodate us. With such a large group, and the front of house being busy they still managed to drop off all of the food to the tables at around the same time so we could all eat together. Very commendable.
Drinks:
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So we start with some drinks as people are arriving. I have a beer. Cheers to them for serving local beer on tap. Had a nice Mill Street Tankhouse Ale to get things started which was great. The ladies however were not so lucky. They start with the lemonade. It's served with a flavour shot of sorts (raspberry, blueberry). Well to start, the lemonade was powdered lemonade. We could tell because of the taste, and because there was a bunch of the powder still at the bottom of the glass. It was all around bad.. The other mixed drinks were terrible as well...I'll save you the pain of going through all the ones we had, but my advice is - stick with beer, or wine or something that doesn't require them to mix it up.
Appetizers
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We had a few between the 5 of us:
1) Spinach Dip - Looked great, but seriously had no flavour. Very disappointing as this is a fan fav.
2) Bacon Wrapped Shrimp - Shrimp were cooked perfectly and were a decent size. The Bacon was rubbery and undercooked (put on after the shrimp were cooked I believe). The sauce was very bland and didn't add anything to do the dish. Should have passed on this one but the description was good. Strike 2 on the food.
3) Bruschetta - Actually really really good. Great flavour, good size. We had it with cheese, and strangely the cheese was on the bottom, with the bruschetta topping piled on top. My Fav appetizer here.
To the first two commenters...I did hear from others at the table that the quesadilla's were good, and so were the calamari...but didn't have them myself.
The Mains
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I asked the waitress if I should have the pizza or the lasagna. "Ohhh, definitely pizza" she says, sort of in a shocked tone. So I have the Calabrese pizza with tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, Italian sausage, red peppers and black olives. Sauce was from a can, crust was from a package, not baked fresh by any means, and the toppings were good but a bit sparse. Again, good concept, but not enough focus to make it good or great. I was disappointed.
My wife and a few others had the Creole pasta. Just so-so. Mostly a tomato base with some "Creole seasoning". Not bad, not great. One other had the Callypso (yes spelt with two L's) Pasta, which was really good.
Dessert
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We didn't have any. Were heading out to the next venue for drinks so we took a pass.
Checking out
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The bills were a pain but again, to be expected with such a large group. they did individual bills for everyone, and let us put the tip on which I respected (instead of charging a standard 15%)...yes I left a good tip, the waitress was good given how busy they were. With that said knowing a group of 35 was coming in, they could have staffed up a bit.
Overall Summary
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I wouldn't go back to the Beach Bird Restaurant. The servers were good, they handled the large group well, but the food was just on the mediocre/poor side. Prices were ok, but a bit pricy for what you got. There are so many better restaurants in the Beaches area to choose from (The Green Eggplant across the street is apparently amazing), I wouldn't waste my time coming here unless it was for the bruschetta and the calypso chicken.
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