Restaurant Review – Prawnbroker

Prawnbroker is located on McGregor Blvd and Cypress Lake Drive. Friends drove us by driving to downtown Ft Myers to McGregor Blvd and then south to Cypress Lake Drive. It took 45 minutes. The other couple we met there took I-75 down to Daniels Parkway and headed to McGregor. That also took 45 minutes. If I remember correctly our reservation was at 5pm, so there might have been a little rush hour traffic involved, but we’re still not “in season” yet, so that traffic is definitely coming and probably a longer commute time to get there. When we left around 7pm it was smooth sailing.

So is Prawnbroker worth the drive? Hmmmmmm…? It was old school, which is OK by me because I’m kind of old school myself! The place was heavy with dark wood tables, chairs and walls. Probably not changed since the day they opened. They’ve probably been making the same dishes for a hundred years (slight exaggeration!), but as you can see in the food pics, not eye popping presentations. Not large portions, so nobody took any leftovers home and the prices were not cheap. It all tasted fine, but nothing tasted fantastic. So all our thumbs were sideways. No thumbs down, but no thumbs up. It was nice to try, but it will be a while before I go back.

Let’s talk about the food. As I remember, Heinz had the triple tail, a mild white fish. It was mild and so was everything else! Andrew had the Bouillabaisse. It was ok. I had the Seafood au Gratin with Newburg Sauce. I used to get a dish like this at a place called Berghoff’s in downtown Chicago back in the day. That was fantastic, this was tiny and ok. Good flavor on the sauce though. I scooped out all of my cold baked potato insides and put it in the sauce to soak it up. I enjoyed that, but the cold baked potatoes are interesting. My wife’s baked potato was kind of on the cool side too. How does that happen? My only guess was they were cooked on another day, refrigerated and then heated back up for service. However, when they reheated them, it was not enough. When I had leftover baked potatoes in my restaurants, they’d end up in soups or corned beef hash or maybe potato salad or cut them into wedges and fry them for steak fries, etc, etc. If you’re going to reuse them as baked potatoes, make sure they’re hot. Holding them in your hands should be uncomfortable.

Looking at the food pics again I can see my baked potato loaded with butter and sour cream. Did this cool down my baked potato? Probably! But the potato should have been hot enough to melt the butter and start to melt the sour cream with some steam still emanating from the potato. The Oysters Rockefeller was ok. The Caesar Salad was good. Presentations were simplistic. The Bouillabaisse was the most interesting looking dish. My wife enjoyed her shrimp dish with nice big shrimps! Prawns! How bout that!

We had some drinks. I started out with one of their specialty drinks. It was ok. I switched to my stand by which is a Dry Southern Comfort Manhattan on the rocks with olives and that was great! My wife order a Chocolate Martini and it was the most uninteresting Chocolate Martini she ever ordered! Where’s the chocolate sauce dripping down the inside of the glass? Some cocoa powder? Something! It looked like Kayo! Remember Kayo?

We had a Creme Brulee for dessert and it was good. Look at that caramelized sugar on top! Perfect!

One last thing. When the four of us got there we checked in at the front desk. Since the other couple in our party was not here yet, we were told to wait in the bar. Why we couldn’t be seated at our table was beyond me. The place was kind of empty. So we go into the bar and there was no room at the bar to sit. So we sauntered over to the room connected to the bar and sat down at a table. A waitress came over and started to set the table. When we told her we were waiting for another couple, she stopped everything and said she’ll be right back. I heard her mumble “thought I had a table” as she was leaving. Our other couple showed up 5 minutes later, so we got up and went to the front desk and we all got sat down at our table. We never saw that waitress again!

Anyway, our waiter for the night was great. Jokes a plenty! Made us laugh and we all had a good time and that helps a lot with the overall dining experience! We may not go back to Prawnbroker anytime soon, but we’ll all go out together and enjoy the next spot, win or lose. Stay tuned! Here’s the link to the Prawnbroker website. By the way, they had a lot of specials that were $19.82. Apparently that’s the year they opened. Over 40 years ago! Not bad! So they must be doing something right! You should check them out and let me know if I’m right or wrong. Any die hard Prawnbrokers out there?