Critic's Review
I felt like some seafood, and I've been bombarded by Red Lobster commercials touting their "seafood trios". So up to Plantation I went.
This location is another depressing space; with a large (empty) dark waiting area with an empty lobster tank. The dining room is a big open room with rows of booths; at least you get a big space.
I ordered an iced tea and went through the menu. I rejected the Seafood Trio, as the choices weren't very compelling. You have to order an alfredo, and the other choices were either breaded or with a bad sauce. I ended up ordering a "Choose 2" combo with grilled salmon and stuffed flounder; as a side I got wild rice and I ordered a salad for a $2.49 up charge.
The salad came out right away. No blue cheese chunks. It was pretty lame; barely worth $2.49 much less as an up charge.
The biscuits come out after the salad, which seems wrong. Do they make them to order or something? They're good, although not very cheddary. Too many carbs to eat for me though.
The fish came out just as I was finishing my salad. A smaller piece of flounder than I expected.
The salmon had a strange taste; it's supposed to be "wood-fired", maybe it's the wood they're using. It tasted kind of gassy.
Salt and pepper fixed it. It was properly cooked and provided some Fatty Acids and protein, at least.
The flounder had some pedestrian stuffing; it was fine I suppose. But I generally like flounder and this didn't float my boat.
I asked for some tartar sauce; I like some some sort of sauce with fish.
I'm not sure what they did, but this was the worst tartar sauce I've ever had. Mayo and pickle relish if you don't have a special recipe; what's so hard about that?
The combo came to $18.99. Their online menu is useless and I don't remember the actual price. The salad wasn't on the bill separately, so maybe is was $16.59? Or maybe he didn't charge me for the salad. I'm not sure. (Note that the menu we have is NOT from this restaurant, so the prices aren't correct for this location).
Conclusion
Despite new ownership and a push towards improving these restaurants, they're still dreary spaces with mediocre food. Many of their new recipes and offerings aren't very good, and they don't have any good sauces, which are needed for fish. You'll never get a dry piece of salmon in a quality restaurant. There are a lot of things here that tell me that they don't have very competent people in the kitchen.
Still a pretty good value; not as bad as it was 5 years ago, but not nearly as good as it was 25 year ago.