“THE BUCCANEER,” A
DINING EXPERIENCE
The Cranky’s
are back from Aruba “One Happy Island.” Four days of sun, water, relaxation,
slot machines and three nights of great dining.
“Three?” you
ask, when you were away for four days?
“Yes,” three
nights of great dining, and one night at “The Buccaneer.”
“The
Buccaneer” was recommended by a relative.
It looked great on the internet, and the prices seemed reasonable. Each table is surrounded by a huge and spectacular
aquarium filled with the ocean life typical to Aruba including a large
Leatherback Turtle. We made reservations
for 8:00, grabbed a cab and were prepared for some fine dining and delightful ambience.
The outside
of the restaurant resembled a big pirate ship.
My first thought was if the food sucks, have a gimmick. The inside of the restaurant was just as schlocky
(sorry Lo, my Yiddish is not so good) complete with pirate like goblets and the
general level of grime that you would expect on a real pirate ship.
After being
seated for about ten minutes, we were finally greeted by a grunt and two menus
tossed in our direction. Fifteen
minutes later (the restaurant was far from packed) and our waiter took our
orders. The waiter at least was
friendly. We then waited for our entre
to arrive…and waited…and waited.
During this
wait we were treated to our own personal aquarium which was nothing like the
picture offered on the internet. It was
a small aquarium with about ten different tropical fish including one which was
trapped between the glass and a plastic filter*. Watching fish for a few minutes gets a bit
boring. Watching one fish slowly dying
while struggling to get free from being entrapped was not appetizing.
When the entrees
finally showed up, they were not worth the wait. Mrs. C’s shrimp looked odd, and except for
some off-green broccoli the rest of the food on the plate was a mystery. My NY sirloin (I could not order fish with
their kin swimming right by me) was NY fat and gristle covered with canned
mushrooms and a disturbingly dark thick gooey gravy. Apparently at this establishment medium rare
meant kill it and serve it.
We both
suffered through this glop they called food while some really bad music from
the seventies played, and a dying fish struggled.
All during
dinner Mrs. C and I could only picture the kitchen as right out of Gordon
Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmare” TV show.
“Come on…this is RAW! You can’t serve this,
you’ll KILL someone. Stop everything; we are shutting this kitchen
DOWN!!”
When we were
done, we asked for a check, lied to the waiter that everything was fine and
prepared to leave. When the check was
signed and we stood up, the piped in music turned to Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey,”
possibly the sappiest and worst music hit of the seventies.
“She
was always young at heart
Kinda
dumb and kinda smart and I loved her so
And
I surprised her with a puppy
Kept
me up all Christmas Eve two years ago”
As Bobby
began to warble “And Honey I miss you…” we both turned to each other and simultaneously
commented, “Perfect!”
*In fairness, another dining room had
the large aquarium that was displayed on the internet, but only three tables had a
direct view of this tank.
