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Fort Lauderdale - Part 2
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
A mad dash through Fort Lauderdale over the weekend, from Polynesian Reviews to Riverboat Cruises.
Saturday
The next afternoon, we had reservations at the Marriott's Harbor Beach Resort & Spa's restaurant, Riva. Again, we had our second experience with a Fort Lauderdale cab driver. We told the driver we wanted to go to the Marriott's Harbor Beach Resort & Spa and he took us to another Marriott, which happened to be 2 miles further up the road. This made us a bit late, but we were stuck at this point. We gave up on the taxi idea and instead decided to walk back along the beach to lunch.
Riva is an ideal location for lunch with its light entrees and perfect beach side location. When they say they're right on the beach, they mean it... sand is everywhere around the place as opposed to the other hotels which are across the road.
As for the meal, we started with the crab cakes for Margherita and the calamari for me. I personally thought the calamari were a bit chewier than I would have liked but Margherita's crab cakes were more crab than cake which is a mark of a good crab cake in my book. After that, for a main course, I had the Shrimp Caesar Salad and Margherita had the Cobb Salad. She personally liked my salad better than hers and I liked hers better than mine so we traded. I loved the Cobb Salad, which had a great mix of fresh avocado, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs and grilled chicken over field greens in a blue cheese dressing. She loved the Shrimp Caesar salad, which was a Caesar salad with a few shrimp tossed on it.
We wished that we had time to stay for dessert, but unfortunately we had to run to a reservation with the Jungle Cruise. Fortunately, the Jungle Cruise Riverboat Tour was about a 5-minute walk away so we made our cruise with seconds to spare.
Jungle Cruises has been around for about 60 years so it's already a landmark (as they put it). I know, it's not the typical "Spring Break" thing to do, but we figured it was relaxing. It was actually a great way to see the houses and mansions.... let me change that, just mansions as there were no houses along the waterways, just multi-million dollar homes. It's a 45 minute narrated cruise along the waterways to the Jungle Cruise private island. All of Fort Lauderdale seems to have this Jimmy Buffet/Tropical theme going on and the private island was no exception. One of the highlights of the island was the insane alligator wrestler.
Working just for tips, he put his hand between the jaws of the alligator just waiting for it to bite his hand off. We walked around the island (as we did feel a bit like trapped customers), but as it was only 45 minutes on the island it wasn't too long. It was actually kind of cute to see the monkeys, parrots and other animals on the island. On the trip back from the island, we were flashed by teenage girls and mooned by local prepubescent boys. Maybe it has something to do with the water.
When we docked we debated between taking a taxi back to the hotel or walking, but as our luck was pretty slim with taxi's we decided to walk. Since it was a long 30-minute walk, we decided to rest up for dinner.
We realized that the only way to make it to Mai Kai for dinner was to actually risk a cab ride in Fort Lauderdale. Margherita felt that even though the first 2 experiences were negative it couldn't always be the case. We hailed a cab and the concierge called a town car, which was 2 dollars more than a cab, but probably a safer bet at that point.
Mai Kai is another Florida institution just as the Jungle Cruise. The owner is quite a fan of the South Pacific and is either obsessive or compulsive but whatever the motive or the passion, she's actually succeeded in recreating a Polynesian village/restaurant right here in Florida. The restaurant itself is simply massive with eight dining rooms. The landscaping in the back of the restaurant is so well done that there are many spots where you can't see the street and highway only yards away.
For dinner we started with the pupu platter as the waitress recommended it and it seemed like the thing to do. The menu had dishes like sushi rolls and egg rolls and other non-stereotypical Polynesian dishes but the pupu platter seemed to hit the mark. Nothing was flaming in front of us and it was rather good. The chicken shanghai stuck out in both of our minds and Margherita was happy to get the recipe from the online web site. After appetizers, I had the orange beef and Margherita had Lobster and Shrimp Cantonese. I finally won out in the battle of the meals, as the Orange Beef was simply the best I've ever had. The meat used was beef tenderloin and the orange sauce was flavorful, but not overpowering. Margherita loved her dish but as far as I was concerned it couldn't have been better than mine. After dinner we realized we had about an hour until the Polynesian show so we had coffees and split a Pineapple Sherbet.
Was the Polynesian show worth it? I'm not into dance reviews but the narrator explained the nature of each dance, where it came from, and why it was used. I found it particularly fascinating for that reason. The 5 dancers changed costumes, which were actually designed by the owner of the restaurant, for every dance. I told you she was compulsive. Her compulsion paid off as it did recreate her dream. I do have to say, I was highly impressed by the male dancers who were able to dance while having flaming torches flying through their fists in a blink of an eye.
We grabbed a cab from Mai Kai as it was the only alternative and prayed for the best. The first thing the driver said was, "Would you like to take Route 1 or go along the scenic route near the beach?" Three drivers out of three have caused us problems in Fort Lauderdale and this one now wanted to know if we wanted to pay extra to drive along the beach and increase our driving cost. I think there is a conspiracy among the cab drivers against tourists.
Read part 1 | Read part 3
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