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Restaurant review

So much potential, so little success

Gulfport's Aqua Bella has a lot going for it. If only the food and service were better.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published June 8, 2006

[Times photos: Lara Cerri]

Patrons of Aqua Bella Raw Bar and Grill in Gulfport take in the sunset on the patio. The restaurant, across the street from the Gulfport Casino, opened in January after owners Sandi Geller and Chris Midulla spent more than a year renovating three separate businesses.

	One dish is the lobster-filled ravioli with pink vodka sauce, tossed with shrimp. The ravioli is striped with squid ink.

GULFPORT

One could complain that Aqua Bella has morphed into the Hurricane of Gulfport.

The new agglomeration across from the Gulfport Casino is only two stories tall, but on our lowbrow shore, even that can seem gigantic.

The building is a reflection of this village's funky spirit: The paint is bright yellow with a full wall of flashing hot pink, but it maintains a tin-roof sense of shoestring decoration.

The upstairs tiki bar takes Gulfport's outdoor drinking to new heights with a nifty view, fresh seafood, high pretensions and a new price range for tiki bar dinners with plastic glasses - well over $10.

Despite Aqua Bella's $20 plates of striped lobster ravioli with fat sea scallops, this is still Gulfport.

From its aging condos to faded cottages, this town likes $2 beers and $3 drink specials, spaghetti nights and Wiener Wednesdays. It counts clean cutoffs as dressing up and isn't keen on walls and roofs. Of seven eateries and drinkeries on Shore Drive, there are five spots to glory in the open breeze (and smoke).

Though Aqua Bella is a bartender's big dream of a seafood restaurant, it keeps the funk in dysfunctional. Although the complex includes the tiki bar, a now-closed gift shop, patio, bar and dining room, there's only one door, usually unstaffed.

At one lunch, the only human in sight worked a mop. In the empty dining room, a server sat by herself.

Aqua Bella can be operational and lively, but still a puzzle. Between the kitchen and all those rooms and patios, there often is a black hole into which servers disappear for far too long. At my first lunch months ago, a thin crowd of three tables strained the staff.

On recent trips, service has been good-natured and surprisingly quick.

When servers arrive, they can bear pleasant surprises, like a big tray of fat, juicy oysters from Cedar Key or truly colossal shrimp. With coconut, of course, done with crunch and crisp.

There is a restaurant, with good cooking and fresh ingredients, struggling to break free in this warren.

Its identify is unclear, sometimes bar food staples, sometimes more ambitious. Sometimes darn good, sometimes botched.

The last can be fixed: A rare 8-ounce hamburger overcooked within a half inch of its life shouldn't happen; husky crab-packed chowder served tepid was sent back to be reheated. The puff-bread sandwich buns should just be scrapped. And tomatoes with so little color should not be served this close to Ruskin in June.

Plenty else is worth keeping, especially when they start with real seafood. Crab cakes, f'r instance, are thick, filler-free pucks of crabmeat pressed together and seared.

Scallops are big, at least an inch across, almost as thick. With lobster sauce and ravioli, way too much.

Grouper was real and local, red rather than black, a thick piece and rightly identified, sadly overcooked.

Tuna steaks had the regulation sesame crust but were surprisingly flavorless. Steamed clams had much more life. Fine starter or entree.

On the side, french fries are as crisp as a pretzel and an equally good match for a cold draft. Don't pass 'em up. Cole slaw has plenty of punch, poppy seed and mayo. Parmesan green beans are a bold idea but they come out too limp; they should be finger food too.

For bar snacks, the favorite is a bucket of jalapeno ''bottle tops,'' fried pepper slices that deliver more cornmeal than fire. Plenty of salt and fat, but I'd rather brave a whole pepper. Dare to be great.

Right now Aqua Bella dares to be a little of everything, deejays, country Caribbean (Waylon does Buffett), happy hour and cards, all with Gulfport's open-armed embrace of all comers.

Service should not be lackadaisical. Straighten that up, and we'll happily pay a prettier penny for fresh crab, scallops, shrimp and a view of the bay, good ol' Gulfport pleasures.

Chris Sherman dines anonymously and unannounced. The St. Petersburg Times pays for all expenses. A restaurant's advertising has nothing to do with selection for a review or the assessment of its quality. Sherman can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com.

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Aqua Bella Raw Bar and Grill

3128 BeachBlvd., Gulfport

727 328-8280

Hours:Serving lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays; until 11 p.m. weekends. Bar open late.

Features: Credit cards; full bar; live music on weekends; no smoking indoors.

PRICES: $6.95 to $21.95.

[Last modified June 7, 2006, 09:31:38]