New England Seafood in South Florida

Laurie, Dawn Marie and I had been up around Palm Beach all day…and now it was time to meet our friends who are in the process of finally and completely moving from South Florida up to paradise…in East Tennessee. 

So we headed for our rendezvous in Fort Lauderdale… (Unbelievable traffic!)

We met at Kelly’s Landing...a restaurant that prides itself in serving New England seafood in sunny Florida.  This restaurant has been in operation since 1987.  In the restaurant business, being in operation for 26 or 27 years is close to a miracle!

 

Since we were late, we missed out on our reservation so we had a bit of a wait…

Despite being in operation for so long, Kelly’s Landing has lost none of its attraction to its fans.  This very casual restaurant was very, very busy!  The laid-back atmosphere was perfect after a long day of touring various attractions.

Our friend Karen was showing Laurie her their sons wedding photos on her new smart phone… It’s been a losing struggle on my part to keep one of those dang things out of her grasp!

These are our friends from South Florida…Charlie and Karen.  They’ve owned a place up in East Tennessee for some time now and they’ve finally made the move to make Tennessee their retirement home!  It’s all about the slower pace of life, lower cost of living, terrific weather with 4 seasons and a lot less traffic!

Laurie took this photo of Dawn Marie and me… I had my fancy shirt on but I sure am looking like an old geezer.  Time does fly!

This is one of our appetizers…a full order of fried Onion Rings. ($6.00) They are touted as ‘the best eva’ and the opinion of our group was that they were indeed fabulous!

Laurie loves lobster and she loves good Crab Rangoon.  This is actually “Lobstah” Rangoon. ($9.00) They were OK but they weren’t anything special…

Charlie ordered a bowl of New England Clam “Chowdah”. ($6.00) He let me have part of it…but we both agreed that it was nothing to write home about.  We’d both had much better clam chowder on several occasions.

Someone ordered a house salad. ($4.00) It was OK…about what one might expect.

I don’t remember who ordered the Lobster Scampi. ($25.00) Kelly’s didn’t scrimp on the lobster, that’s for sure!  With no negative comments, this one was a winner!

This is the Broiled Scrod…baked with lemon and butter, then topped with seasoned bread crumbs. ($21.00) Karen thought that it was pretty good but the baked potato was a bit ‘tired’.

Laurie ordered one of her favorites…a “Lobstah” Roll with French fries and a side of coleslaw. ($16.00) She didn’t care for the slaw and compared to the lobster rolls we’ve had in New England over the years, this one just didn’t measure up.  She wasn’t as happy camper as she could of been…

Dawn Marie isn’t into seafood so she ordered a Chef’s Salad. ($9.00) It came with lettuce, egg, onions, ham and cheddar cheese.  Even by East Tennessee standards, this wasn’t an outstanding salad…

Once again, I said “to heck” with eating healthy!  I ordered the Half and Half Fried Seafood Platter with clam strips, scrod, French fries and the coleslaw.  None of it was particularly distinctive but it was OK.  The clam strips were not exactly gigantic...reminding me of the old days eating fried clams at Howard Johnson's Restaurants.

We should have stopped while we were ahead…or if we’d been smarter.  We bought 3 desserts to share.  This is the Boston Cream Pie. ($4.00) We’d all had far better versions of this classic.

This was the Special Dessert for the evening…Red Velvet Cake. ($4.00) It was just not that 'special'.

Finally, we had a piece of Key Lime Pie… ($4.00) Eatable, but we should have just skipped this one too!

In conclusion…the New England seafood and the other items we tried at Kelly’s Landing were nothing to write home about.  With the exception of the terrific onion rings the food ranged from mediocre…mostly mediocre…to good.  We will skip this restaurant the next time that we’re in Ft. Lauderdale.  Incidentally, the service wasn’t all that great either.  

On the positive side...we all had a great time visiting with our friends!

If you want to verify our findings, Kelly’s Landing is located at 1305 Southeast 17th Street in Fort Lauderdale.  Phone: 954-760-7009.  Website: www.kellyslanding.com.  

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave