Orlando|FL
I was in Orlando and craving seafood, naturally I took to Instagram and found amazing photos of the seafood at Paddle Fish and saw that they had all kind of awards for greatest restaurants. So I didn't waste anytime. I found the address and drove right over. I checked in with the Yelp app and there was a 20% off check-in discount, So I was happy about that and the restaurant was beautiful, but that's about where all the good ended. We got our menu and it was really pricey, but we were getting 20% off at least and we were on vacation so I wasn't thinking about it much until the food came and I saw the quality of what we were getting. My "cool, and calm, carefree - we're on vacation attitude quickly changed.
The food started to roll out and it was very unimpressive, the $70 seafood platter came out and at first glance it didn't have $70.00 worth of seafood on it and it didn't even come served with lemon or cocktail sauce and I know it's a weird thing to say about a cold seafood platter, but it was too cold-ice cold, almost frozen and bland so, so bland and it didn't even come with any sauces. Oysters at a restaurant of this caliber should be served with a mignonette or red vinegar and at the very, very, least lemon and cocktail sauce, any old random bar would do it, there's no excuse for this place not to do it. I asked for some vinegar and I was offered malt vinegar. I wasn't eating fish & chips I was having a cold seafood platter, bring me a mignonette, but they didn't even know what that was so I just asked for lemon and cocktail sauce which again, it should have already came with. because there were cold bland shrimp on the platter.
The $70.00 platter: 4 oysters, 6 shrimp, 3 crab legs and two small samplings of poke and what was supposed to be ceviche, but it was more peppers and onions than anything else no lemon, no cocktail sauce, no vinegar
We got the rest of our food, crab fries that the kids were excited about, but even they were unimpressed by the fries. They weren't crispy and everything they top them with was cold, cold dressing and cold crab So obviously I got cold rubbery fries. Then came the shrimp boil, it was the best thing I tried, but it's not saying much since I didn't like anything else. The cheapest of the boils were shrimp with Tajin ( the salt you sprinkle on fruits) for $28.00 and the shrimp weren't quality peel-and-eat shrimp they were 21-25 count the ones that come half peeled in those frozen bags at the supermarket, That are on sale all the time for like $5.99/lb, they weren't those meaty white shrimp that you would expect to get in a boil, they were the cheap and slimy. I was pissed! I had just arrived in Orlando just hours before an I wanted a great meal, I had traveled all night and was so hungry anything would have tasted good, but the food was so bad that even tired and starving I didn't enjoy it.
These are not your typical peel-and-eat shrimp
Fries, with what seems to be a cold Thousand Island's dressing and cold crab on top.
The burger doesn't look that good, but it was one of the better things here. although at a seafood restaurant the seafood should shine not the burger.
I had such a terrible experience that I ended up writing to them about it and they refunded my money, but had no reason for why the seafood platter didn't come with lemon and cocktail sauce or any of the other, many complaints I had. They were nice about it all, but I still must warn you to save your money and eat something better.
The view from the restaurant is beautiful but free to look at from the outside.
Paddlefish
1670 Buena Vista Dr, Orlando, FL 32830
located at Downtown Disney aboard a faux riverboat