Bahama Breeze

My new goal (one of many, ever changing, ever forgotten goals) is to keep track of the places I've eaten/drank/hung out in town, to both give an idea of the different places in Cleveland, and to serve as a reminder to find other places. No duplicate items from the menu! (If there's nothing new left, time to find a new place).

Today we rallied to go to Bahama Breeze on the east side, at Chagrin and I-271. There was a special promotion today - a number of restaurants nationally were donating a portion of sales and/or profits to hurricane relief (www.dineforamerica.org). The choice of places in the area was pretty much BB, Outback, or Olive Garden. As we try to do a "happy hour" type place (more bar than grill), BB seemed like the place to go. Plus, Tomsic's brother works there, so always happy to pour more funds back into "the family".

No beer specials - had a 20 oz "Aruba Red" - like Killians with a little less clean finish (I prefer the bite at the end) for $2.75.
Bob ordered Coconut Shrimp as an appetizer, but they brought the wrong ones (fire roasted jerk shrimp) so we wound up with the wrong ones for free (yes there is such thing as a free lunch). Not bad, the bread in the butter sauce was the best part.

For dinner I ordered the Oak Grilled Center Cut Pork Chops (I don't intend to be this detailed usually, but the website has a handy menu online) wish skin-on mashed potatoes and broccoli. There was a tangy dipping sauce which was good in small quantities (seemed like a dark tomato vinegrette, or something similar). Decent pork chop (I chose the "light" portion, so there was one chop instead of two), but nothing like the ones in the Bahamas (thin, more spice, and melt in your mouth). The broccoli was surprisingly good - or at least tasteless (which is good), so it wasn't entirely nutritionless.

I'd go for it again, but would probably try something else. It didn't stand out enough to make me crave it a second time, but a good pork chop is always a nice option at a restaurant.

We didn't stick around too long after eating; there was a decent crowd there (packed at the bar) when we showed up, but it had thinned out by the end of the evening. Being in a booth in a corner is not the best situation for mingling, but there were a few hotties that breezed by. Overall, a nice alternative to TGI Fridays/Applebees, but I prefer the hole in the wall places (and the beer specials).