From SunSentinel.com: Even in this tough economy, we've seen Steak 954 on Fort Lauderdale Beach, Truluck's in Fort Lauderale's The Galleria mall, The Capital Grille in Boca Raton and Morton's The Steakhouse in Fort Lauderdale open their doors. And you can hardly get a weekend reservation at Chop's Lobster Bar or Abe & Louie's, both in Boca Raton.
Although the menus at these steak stalwarts are filled with well-aged beef, they are keeping guests coming back by offering choices. And many of those choices are fish dishes.
At The Capital Grille in Fort Lauderdale, 40 percent of the menu is devoted to seafood and 30 percent of the orders are for seafood, according to executive chef Marc Gruverman. At Jackson's Steakhouse, also in Fort Lauderdale, the usual beef-with-horns menu, as owner Jack Jackson calls it, is popular. But about 25 percent of the orders are from a secondary menu that offers seafood, he says.
It takes some doing to get meat eaters to forego their prime beef and opt instead for the pompano and snapper. So these chefs have to know how to tempt with their fish preparations. We ask them to share their secrets and show off the surf in their surf and turf.
"Seafood lets me be creative," says Brian Nelson, executive chef at Abe & Louie's in Boca Raton. "A steak you pretty much have to grill, and that's it. But fish can be prepared many different ways — grilled, pan-seared, broiled."
He offers the recipe for Abe & Louie's Tropical Fruit Salsa that is served with their crab cakes. But home cooks will enjoy this combination of chopped pineapple, peaches, green peppers and tomatoes with grilled grouper or snapper, he says. The salsa gets even more flavor and a kick of heat from the jalapeno, cilantro and mint it contains.
To grill fish, the chef suggests brushing the fillets with oil, then lightly sprinkling them with salt and fresh-ground black pepper. Then he grills the fish 4 to 5 minutes a side.
At Jackson's Steakhouse, they have introduced a regularly changing secondary menu that "appeals to the softer side of dining," says owner Jackson. Although the main menu emphasizes well-aged steaks, this other menu is more into seafood.
Here, Andouille-Crusted Swordfish With Chipotle Pepper Sauce is one of the more popular items appearing on the menu every 10 days or so. "Swordfish is wonderful, and the andouille gives it a real tanginess. It's a nice change from swordfish 101," Jackson says.
At The Capital Grille, Gruverman is proud of his local seafood. Although he's worked at a number of venues, he's used the same fish purveyors for the past 12 years, he says.
"I get first pick of the fish, first crack at the stone crabs," he says.
He offers a stunning presentation for his snapper with Tomato, Olive And Caper Sauce. He sets the fish and sauce in the center of a round of parchment paper that he gathers at the edges and twists into a package that looks like a beggar's purse.
As you carefully unwrap the baked fish at the table, the tomato sauce against the white of the fish in its oven-browned envelope looks rustic and inviting. No wonder diners forgo the porterhouses and tenderloins for a taste of the sea. |
