VERO BEACH — No restaurant in Vero comes even close to decorating for the holidays like the venerable Ocean Grill.
In December, dinner at the Ocean Grill is as much a part of the quintessential Vero holiday experience as the Christmas parade down Ocean Drive.
And in late October, you don’t want to miss the spook-tacular transformation of the Ocean Grill for Halloween.
Unless you are unusually lucky, you probably won’t be able to get in on the big night itself, when members of the restaurant staff bid to outdo one another for scariest costume.
But the ghouls and goblins have been lurking amid the spider webs at the Ocean Grill for a couple of weeks now – and on a recent evening, we invited a couple of newcomers to Vero along for what we promised would be a haunting dining experience.
We decided to simply start on this visit with salads. I had the tossed house salad (included with dinner). My husband went for the wedge – a wedge of iceberg lettuce with bleu cheese crumbles ($6 extra with dinner), and our two companions enjoyed Caesars ($3 extra).
For entrees, I imposed on our server to bring me a no-longer-on-the-menu favorite, scallops baked in butter and served in a delicious mustard sauce. The Ocean Grill now serves scampi prepared in this manner, and the shrimp are good – but I still love the scallops.
My husband passed up his perennial favorite, the roast duckling (no one does it better) and ordered one of that evening’s specials, the pound-and-a-quarter Florida lobster ($36.95) stuffed with fresh blue crabmeat, broiled, and served with drawn butter. Very nice.
One of our companions had seemed about to order the crab cakes when he changed his mind and went for the fisherman’s catch ($23.95), which includes a crab cake, as well as lightly-fried butterfly shrimp, scallops, and fish fingers. The crabcake and the shrimp, he said, were the pride of the catch.
Our other companion settled right away on the stuffed shrimp ($23.95), and said the crabmeat stuffing was the best she’d ever tasted.
For desert, one of our companions ordered a schaum torte, the house specialty that loads several scoops of ice cream with generous dollops of whipped cream, berries and strawberry “drippings” (other choices were chocolate or fudge) on a hard merengue shell.
The torte had looked modest enough on the presentation tray, but when actually served, it was absolutely huge. Fortunately, it came with spoons for all, and the rest of us felt compelled to help him finish it off.
Beyond the Halloween experience awaiting you this week at the Ocean Grill, I might also note that stone crab season is now underway.
The Ocean Grill serves them chilled, of course, with a homemade mustard sauce either as an appetizer or an entrée.
Dinner for two with a modest bottle of wine is likely to run you about $90 before tax and tip (if you pass up the somewhat more expensive stone crabs).
And for a unique Halloween or Christmas experience, there is no better choice.
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.