A GIFTED LEGACY…A JOY OF LIFE

                                     
What better legacy is there than to leave our children and grandchildren “a joy for life”?  The opportunity to expose children to different adventures, sights, sounds and tastes at an early age only reinforces their curious minds and enables them to appreciate all that life has to offer.

If you and your family are vacationing in Orlando, Florida and are enjoying Disney World, Universal, Sea World, and the numerous water parks you may find that between the character meals and the theme park food your body is begging for one night’s respite at a fine dining restaurant.  However, with your children’s adrenalin flowing and yours wavering you might have that nagging feeling that with the hectic pace you have been setting since your arrival in the Sunshine State this desperately needed respite just may have to wait until you go home. 

Well your wish can come true.  If you are looking for a unique experience in fine dining for your family the Gaylord Palms Hotel’s Sunset Sam’s Fish Camp Restaurant is definitely the place you want to be.  Dress is casual but the dining experience far exceeds the norm.Sunset Sam’s Fish Camp not only offers its guests a fine dining experience but also provides entertainment for the entire family.   Fire Eaters, magicians, stilt walkers, animal balloon artists, fire throwers, jugglers and a musical venue that includes the children’s participation creates an amazingly festive atmosphere for an extremely enjoyable evening.  While the children are enjoying themselves onboard the S.S. Gaylord, a 60 foot sailboat, Chef Goia is in the kitchen preparing his creative and inspiring dishes for the gourmet palate.

Fish caught from local waters, vegetables and fruit that are harvested right here in Florida add a freshness and zest to each and every appetizer and entrée.  It is a rare find that mixes a fun, family friendly atmosphere with creative and sophisticatedly prepared fare that is served by a knowledgeable and professional wait staff.  Sunset Sam’s turns that hat trick.

The Crabby Old Guy and I recently took our seven year old grandson, Adrian, to Sunset Sam’s with our daughter Robin for an evening of fine dining and entertainment.  Now, one thing I must mention about Crabby is that he has dined in lots of fantastic restaurants all over the world on a Fortune-10 business executive expense account.   While Adrian has not yet reached that level he is working on his fifth cruise and has been dining out with family at places like the Ritz Carlton and Fleming’s Steak House as well as Perkins and the local spaghetti restaurant since he was old enough to be propped up in his car seat at the table.  He also is one of those kids who will taste most anything – at least once.  To try and appease Crabby’s palate and to test just how Adrian liked a real seafood establishment we ordered a rather extensive meal for the four of us who were rather curious about the kid-appeal of a wide variety of seafood dishes.

Top line about Sunset Sam’s cuisine at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando: the food is excellent, creatively seasoned and presented with a touch of Caribbean flare that is as sophisticated as it is fun.  So let’s review our Family Friendly Key West/Caribbean-style feast menu course by course.

For appetizers we truly had trouble selecting from the nine items listed on the menu.  The all sounded wonderful when reading the menu and, as we saw plate after plate pass by our table, they all looked as sumptuous on the plate too.  So we did what any good family might do, we ordered the Three Tiered Tower sampler.  This was impressively presented on a two-and-a-half foot tall colorful server, which to Adrian must have seemed like the Empire State Building of dishes.  The eight different items were wonderfully presented in a sparking display of smells and color.  We did ask for one substitution on the tray and the waiter gladly obliged. 
                                       
                                  

The Tower was loaded with conch fritters – light with a mild taste and perfectly fried, lobster skewers – with a substantial amount of deliciously grilled lobster meat that was sweet and perfect, blue crab salad – well prepared with some nice mild Caribbean inspired flavors that provided a cool contrast to the hot items, ahi tuna tartar – a bit mildly flavored but very good quality tuna (only Crabby had this one), shrimp cocktail – good sized butterfly shrimp that were plump and cooked properly (these came with a good but fairly standard cocktail sauce) and soba noodles - that were nicely cool and slightly tart, surprisingly  Adrian enjoyed this a lot.  The standout on the Three Tiered Tower for the adults was the Cigar Shrimp.  These are jumbo shrimp coated in a light and savory crust and fried to perfection crisp outside lovely moistness inside.  If all fried seafood dishes were prepared this well it could resurrect the Fisherman’s Platter to glory – well, maybe.  The Cigar Shrimp was served with a tangy Thai style dipping sauce.  By the way, if you order these Cigar Shrimp as a separate appetizer they are served in a cylindrical dish with dry-ice inspired smoke surrounding it.  Ok – maybe a bit hokey but with the fun and bright atmosphere of the restaurant and the exceptionally good quality of the food-product it works quite well. 

We ordered the Key West Calamari Strips and the Crab and Spinach Dip in lieu of a salad course a bit of appetizer over kill but we were enjoying ourselves just watching our grandson try all of the selections and we were so glad we did.  The calamari was not the ubiquitous ringlets but nice light and flavorful strips.   Strips are a bit harder to cook properly than ringlets but at Sunset Sam’s they were done perfectly; the horseradish based dipping sauce goes great and is not at all over powering, not even for our grandson.  If you like calamari you will love these.   Adrian loved the Crab and Spinach dip.  It had lots of crab and not overly sauced or seasoned.  The adults found this dish to be perfectly delightful but, in comparison to the other items we sampled; it was not quite the star of our first course mini-feast.

While Sunset Sam’s does have a pretty robust clientele of locals it does cater a bit more too meeting goers.  So the prices here are a bit on the high side; figure about $40-50 per adult person and $20 for child menu option.  If you are on a budget ordering a range of these fun, tasty and well presented appetizers would make a fantastic dinner for those whose appetites are not as impressive as our families. 

Finally, after a bit of breathing and stretching and entertainment (a juggler who came by the table to entertain all, particularly Mr. A who got a chance to juggle some plates), we began our main, or rather I should say, entrée course.  The entrée menu features several nice fresh fish selections that were geared to adult tastes so the Little Person was having a bit of trouble finding something to have.  He looked at the kids menu and found that it featured Fettuccini Alfredo and the ubiquitous burger and several other options.  But, they are extremely accommodating at Sunset Sam’s – important for a place that wants to be family friendly - and we asked the chef to prepare the Seafood Paparadelle Pasta offered on the regular menu without the scallops, shrimp and lobster for our grandson.   Our accommodating waiter did offer to have chicken added but Mr. A took a pass on that.  It sounded so good I too decided on the Seafood & Papardelle Pasta but, of course, I had it with the shell fish added.  This rather large portion had several large succulent scallops, three jumbo shrimp, which were perfectly sautéed and a nice portion of rock lobster meat.  The sauce was like an Alfredo but a bit more robust with a touch of garlic that did not at all over power the taste of the shell fish. 

The Crabby Old Guy had one of the fresh-catch offerings of the night, the Seared Sushi Grade Ahi Tuna that was served with a very nice Ponzu dipping sauce.  He ordered it done “…slightly more than seared, but slightly less than rare.”  You gotta admit, he not only knows what he wants but how he wants it, at times I do wonder if he is tempted to go into the kitchen and cook it himself!  At any rate, the tuna dish came back perfectly done for him and it was delicious.   There were two substantially large tuna steaks colorfully presented.  Our daughter had the Grilled Mahi Mahi in Cracked Conch and Tomato Stew, with a side of cheese polenta cakes and drizzled with a tiny bit of basil aioli.  This dish was the star of the entrées and I would highly recommend it.  The fish was buttery and wonderfully prepared and the saffron flavored conch and tomato stew was reminiscent of a fantastic bouillabaisse with a Caribbean flair courtesy of the bit of conch added to the dish.  Just lovely!

By the time we finished our entrees we were so stuffed that the thought of dessert was a bit overwhelming. However, our seven year old grandson couldn’t resist the spectacular Banana Mama Split.  Of course, being a doting grandmother I agreed to split the split with him.  It was so creatively presented that we all forced ourselves to try a bit.  We did take a Peanut Butter bliss and a slice of Key Lime pie home and it was worth the calories as a midnight snack after putting Mr. A to bed.

                                      

One other interesting feature here, strictly for adults, is the large number of fine sipping-rums.  Sunset Sam’s stocks rums from all over the Caribbean and a few from Latin America.  You can order a tasting flight of some fantastic rums before or after dinner.  These are handsomely served along with a map showing where the product comes from.  If you are a rum aficionado, or even if you are not but want to experience a pleasant experience, give the sipping-rum flight a try.

                                     

At the end of the evening, Adrian gave Chef Goia two thumbs up.  He loved the food and thoroughly enjoyed playing the maracas on the stage with several other children while the adults were also pleasantly entertained.  The highest praise Adrian could give was to ask before going to bed “When are we going back to Sunset Sam’s for dinner again?”  I replied “Very soon.”  Kudos, Chef Goia your presentation and creative menu definitely made for a memorable evening for our entire family.