VERO BEACH — With the season behind us, it’s time once again to begin reporting on the many low-cost summer dining specials now being offered by some of Vero’s top restaurants.
We began doing this last June, and with each passing week, more local restaurants jumped on the summer menu bandwagon. The final one we got around to visiting last summer was Johnny D’s, so it only seems fair we make it the first we report on this year.
This bistro, now in its second summer on South A1A, is offering a prix fixe menu that is one of the best bargains on the beach.
The deal at Johnny D’s is that you get a house salad and a choice of 16 entrées for the great price of $16. A glass of wine to accompany your meal starts at $3.
Best of all, you don’t have to arrive at an indecently early hour to take advantage of this. The prix fixe is offered from the time the dinner hour begins at 5 right up to close.
So last Tuesday, three of us presented ourselves at 6:45 p.m. and were promptly seated in the main dining area.
Our waiter offered us a choice of the $3 wine or an upgrade at $5 per glass, and we both opted to try the $3 selections – a pinot grigio for me and a chardonnay for my husband.
We then decided to start with the house salads. I selected the sun-dried tomato balsamic dressing, and my husband choose the creamy onion.
Our companion decided to upgrade to a Caesar salad for an additional $1.95. The house salads got the higher marks.
For entrées, I ordered the piccolo pescatore and my husband went for the Ying Yang tuna. Our companion ordered a personal 12-inch pizza (a 17th option on the prix fixe).
My dish consisted of Prince Edward Island mussels, calamari, little neck clams and shrimp in a tomato seafood herb broth over linguini – a yummy variation on a zuppa di pesce.
My husband’s dish may well be the best on the menu – 8 ounces of beautiful yellowfin tuna seared rare, then sliced and fanned out on the plate with a cucumber wasabi sauce on one side and a mandarin orange, ginger and sesame sauce on the other.
The two sauces were a wonderful compliment to the sushi grade tuna. This dish also comes with roasted garlic and rosemary smashed potatoes.
Our companion is a big fan of the pizzas at Johnny D’s, and this one – with mozzarella, anchovies, mushrooms, olives and Vidalia onions – drew the customary raves.
Midway through his entrée, my husband decided to try the $5 chardonnay offering for comparison. It was OK, but his advice: stick with the $3 glasses of wine, which are very drinkable.
Other dishes on the summer menu that we did not get to on this visit but which tempted us were the lombata, a porterhouse pork chop topped with balsamic braised Bermuda onions, goat cheese and Granny Smith apples; the mahi Mediterranean, a grilled dolphin fillet with grape tomatoes, kalamata olives, capers and Bermuda onions in a house marinara; and gamberoni scampi, jumbo white shrimp with garlic, extra virgin olive oil and herbs tossed with linguini.
Many of the pasta selections will be familiar to fans of this restaurant, and sampling all of them should carry you well into the summer.
In the two years this South Beach restaurant has been open, it has become an island favorite, with an innovative culinary approach that delivers consistently tasty meals.
The regular entrée offerings are not expensive and the prix fixe menu is currently one of Vero’s great dining bargains.
The only thing you miss out on by sticking with the prix fixe are Johnny D’s excellent starters, which run an additional $12.
But a dinner for two on the prix fixe with a glass of wine each for a total bill of $38 will leave you feeling so good about Johnny D’s that you may wish to splurge on a slice of limoncello cake, which is a definite ‘don’t miss.’
I welcome your comments, and encourage you to send feedback to me at tina@verobeach32963.com.
The reviewer is a beachside resident who dines anonymously at restaurants at the expense of Vero Beach 32963.