International's Asian

[Times photos: Thomas M. Goethe] The Bamboo Club is an Arizona import whose interior design is sharper than its menu.

By CHRIS SHERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 1, 2001

Along Bay Street, the mall's restaurant row, high concepts and flashy decors are king of the Asian locales. Unfortunately, that leaves food on the back burner.

You have to drive around to the back side of International Plaza to see one of its biggest attractions. Bay Street is a dining theme park with almost a dozen places to eat and drink, apres shopping. Or before. Or without.

Flashy chain restaurants with $18 entrees, wild curves, cool chairs and grabber colors we've seen before at BayWalk and Centro Ybor and Channelside, but International Plaza distinguishes itself two ways.

First is the sheer number of choices, from a gooey Reuben to a sleek slab of toro tuna. I count seven restaurants, a candy shop, a coffee bar and a bread store on this postmodern piazza. (The Cheesecake Factory has just opened, and while many fans showed up on opening day, I'll give it a week or so to get settled and report back to you soon. A martini bar, a full-sized Starbucks and one more restaurant are yet to open.)

That's more eats attached to one parking lot than you'll find this side of Downtown Disney.

The other distinction is that this department store of restaurants isn't tied to movie theaters -- and given the recent drought of decent pictures, that's a real plus. Instead, Bay Street offers shopping, even window shopping, the true American pastime, as entertainment. That can make for an easy date any night of the week. It also lets you combine dinner with errands and offers a lunch spot for both shoppers and the West Shore office hordes.

On my first tour, I concentrated on places that fired up wood-burning ovens to turn out California designer pizzas, inside and outside the mall. This time I stayed in the Bay Street maze and ate more of the other mall food group, Asian. My conclusions are the same: Mall restaurants look better and more sophisticated than they taste.

Although they borrow from Japan, Vietnam and beyond, much of the Asian cooking resembles a puu puu platter piled high with fat and sugar. If you like macadamia, coconut, orange sauces and fried wontons, this is your place. Other local purveyors such as Cafe B.T., Roy's, T.C. Choy's and Pacific Wave need have no fear.

As at other fun zones, decor and concept trump food; dining is often clean but dull. There are exhibition kitchens aplenty, but only at Gallery Eclectic Bistro did I get a sense that the chef and kitchen took care daily with fresh ingredients and ideas. Add Prezzo, the Mediterranean import from South Florida, which I discovered on my first trip, and you have the best eating on Bay Street. And I hold out hope that Profusion will blossom.

THE BAMBOO CLUB

This Arizona import serves Pan Asian as an uptown fern bar; indeed the ferns have grown into bamboo, real ones and more than 10 feet tall, but they fit the 25-foot ceilings easily.

Like Hyde Park's Samba Room, Bamboo has its roots in TGIFriday's, in this case a Phoenix franchisee moving from casual to more global fashion.

Bamboo Club is a sharp piece of interior design; its fishing floats, sketchy murals, rattan chairs and sexy jewel tones give it the slickest decor on Bay Street.

The food didn't get the same quality thinking.

The concept might have made sense, to make dishes from around the Pacific Rim sophisticated and easy for Gen Zen grazing.

But the menu is too big and complicated to navigate. I found Saigon beef, wokked Vietnamese beef and lemongrass beef in three places and still am not sure even the waiter knew the difference (I know he hadn't tasted them). And although it pushes sharing (not a new idea in Chinese restaurants), only a handful of items are identified as appetizers.

Descriptions bristle with words like crackling, crispy, chili, ginger and lemongrass, and the menu promised food that is wokked, steamed, grilled, stir-fried and noodled.

Cool, huh? On my first visit, most came out tasting like too-familiar Cantonese, soggy and under brown sauces more sweet than sour; curry noodles were bland, orange scallops were lost in thick breading, meat was dry, herbs old, and so on.

A later visit turned up better service and more flavor, real chili paste on crisp green beans and good fire in Kwan's spicy soup. There was faint ginger on a special of steamed halibut, but only garlic in Korean beef. I gave the leftovers rice vinegar, hot sauce and sesame seeds to get more of Korea's earthy flavors. The best bite was a salad tossing duck meat with spinach and a not-too-fruity sauce.

Of course the bar is stocked with novelty drinks, but the sake list is embarrassingly scant.

GALLERY ECLECTIC BISTRO

[Times photo: Thomas M. Goethe] Gallery Eclectic Bistro shows the most promise in the kitchen, with fresh ingredients and fresh ideas.

Please forgive the name. They want to say they're interested in art and that they serve a variety of food. But if they aren't whizzes in the name game, they're on target about both art and food.

Gallery looks as sharp as its neighbors in the usual retro-futuro way, maybe better, with big round tables and booths in uptown '50s geometrics. It's a handsome setting for bright, bracing artwork from local artists here and in Jacksonville, its first locale.

But it tastes even better, for this is one of the few places that cares about food as much as concept. Chefs cook with fresh ingredients and fresh ideas; servers know and care about food, too.

The menu tips its fusion hat to the usual Asian and Italian suspects, but I detect signature flavors that are more Mediterranean, i.e. Greek. Unusual, since this is a branch of the first high-end restaurant of a Florida group that got its start selling shopping mall Cajun.

At first glance, Gallery's menu covers staples of mall fusion -- seared tuna, Cobb salad, filet mignon, and pasta -- but heaven is in the details, like portobello duxelles and cranberry anise chutney and especially sauces of smoked tomato cream and balsamic syrup.

Chefs tip their toques to Asian, Cajun and Caribbean but go one step better. For instance, crab and andouille sausage comes with a pepper-potato hash, poached egg and Bearnaise.

No name covers all the flavors here -- I even pick up Greek -- but the result is solidly enjoyable food that proves the melting pot has style and comfort.

Lamb shanks slowly braised with carrots and celery (my waiter said five hours, which is about right) don't need more than mashed potatoes, but adding blackberry demiglace was a treat. Sea bass, our new favorite fish, got perfect skin searing, plus crab meat, cheddar grits and grilled asparagus. The plate needed color, but it was rich in flavors and texture.

Gallery Eclectic Bistro blends a hip interior with a burst of flavors from the kitchen, including Asian, Cajun, Caribbean and even Greek.

For starters, you've got to see and eat the shrimp kataifi, which puts shredded phyllo dough around shrimp and serves them with a tasso sauce and sweet corn relish. This beats coconut, macadamia or pecans in my book.

Do try the Dutch chocolate cake, if you're a party of at least four. This is no death, decadence or indulgence, just the fantasy of a plain ol' chocolate cake, dark, moist and made by pros who stacked up four layers and cut you almost half a cake.

This is the newest and least heralded of the restaurants here, and so far the easiest to get in. Take advantage of that; it's the best cooking in the mall so far.

KAHUNAVILLE

The Big One drew a crowd when it hit the beach, but for anyone with taste, visual or otherwise, this is a wipeout.

Go with visions of the old Polynesian folderol of Trader Vic's, you'll find yourself flashing back to Animal House.

Kahunaville, a Delaware chain designed as a Rain Forest Cafe with beer and silly cocktails, is in a vast concrete space that resembles a gym transformed for "Indiana Jones Night" by a decorating committee chaired by John Belushi. Garish orange, purple and green, silk flowers and fake stone are everywhere, with the focal point a limp light and water show. Even the torches are fake: The "flames" are billowing fabric. Clever, but it'd never work on Survivor.

The food won't take you anywhere exotic, although some dishes look impressive, like a giant martini glass with a half-dozen lobster fritters like the stamp 'n' go snacks of Jamaica. Up close, these resemble hush puppies big enough be a state fair novelty -- and hard enough to knock over a stack of milk bottles. There are lobster, corn, cheese and more in the batter, but it's hard to taste any of it.

Pot stickers, a staple starter that can have a classy, spare presentation, were lost in a shredded salad and under gooey sauce. Asian short ribs also failed to achieve any Eastern flavor: The short ribs had been properly long-cooked and reheated, but there was no glaze or sauce of orange, ginger, curry, chili or any flavor except the meat on three lonely, bony ribs. The rest of the plate was rice with a cabbage stir-fry supposedly spiked with macadamia syrup.

The best entree tasted of more familiar shores: crab cakes that were all crab and the size of hockey pucks (I mean that respectfully), and at $18.95 they ought to be. As a house specialty, it needs to be dressed up with more than steamed vegetables, regulation tartar sauce and French fries (although they are mighty crisp).

The surprise is that Kahunaville has updated its food and hired a top chef for the chain. Alfonse Contrisciani of Circa and Opus 251 in Philadelphia and Harrah's in Atlantic City was captain of the U.S. Culinary Olympic Team; his credentials are genuine, but if he's made changes, they aren't enough. There are few winners at this location. Even a floating margarita, a smart concoction in a large glass that contains one margarita on the rocks and a second scoop of frozen margarita plopped in the middle of the ice cubes, had no salt on the rim.

Desserts, assembled at an exhibition pastry counter in the bar, show style. A miniature bundt cake with cinnamon ice cream and cooked apples was fun (if a bit dry), but a truffle cake of chocolate deep and dark, surrounded by razzling, dazzling neon berry sauce and topped with two scoops, was too rich to finish.

It takes a pretty big village to staff a Kahunaville, and my server and the hostess who seated us were cheerful and solicitous. Yet there were serious gaps and gaffes: It was hard to get attention at the host stand because six staffers were talking to each other; the server didn't know the food; and entrees came late (and one of them wrong).

PROFUSION

It's easy to admire International Plaza's most elegant restaurant, with two dramatic dining rooms -- one with walls in cashmere beige and the other lacquerbox red -- its sleek bar and its two-story wine tower of polished wood and glass. A rare place where grownups can dress up.

It's harder, however, to feel comfortable here. Even the staff seems hesitant and uncertain. A month after opening, the towering wine rack is largely empty, the sushi bar is staffed but not impressively stocked, and there is only one brief menu, not the promised dual concepts.

This was to be a grand showcase for the Mah family, Chinese-Canadian restaurateurs from Montreal and Boston, to display fine Asian food on one side and Euro-Asian fusion on the other.

So far, it is mostly a place for good Chinese on white tablecloths and consequently has drawn an older, more formal crowd -- and one of the big-money restaurant players in town. Dining on one of my visits was Keyshawn Johnson, Tampa Bay Buccaneer and Los Angeles restaurateur (his sharply run Reign there serves A-list soul food); a week later he signed on with the Mahs and inspired dreams of a big league chain. Maybe that will put pro attitude in Profusion.

On opening weekend here, most of a meal went wrong and slow, so much so that Mrs. Mah forgave the bill and we returned a month later. The menu is still short, but it covers Chinese chestnuts such as General Tso's crackerjack chicken and mild Hunan dumplings.

From other parts of Asia, there's pad Thai, but it's so dry and ordinary it shouldn't be on the menu, and sushi. That's reported to be a wow in the Mahs' other restaurants; scallops were perfectly fresh and the sashimi hefty, thick cuts, but nothing exceptional.

From Europe, the best was a fine medallion of creamy goat cheese on tartly dressed arugula. Crispy-skin salmon was overdone yet without crunch; a three-mushroom risotto produced rice of the right consistency, with parsley and lemon emulsified in it, but the mushrooms were skimpy and sauteed on the side.

Desserts were the prettiest and most sophisticated part of the menu, from creme brulee to a lush cold soup of poached pear.

I hope these are just first steps that will end on a sweeter note of greater variety. Being next to Cheesecake Factory may provide spillover business -- and an example of efficiency to copy.

BAY STREET

International Plaza
2223 West Shore Blvd.
Tampa

THE BAMBOO CLUB

Tampa, West Palm Beach, four Arizona locations

(813) 353-0326 Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to midnight Friday-Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday

• Reservations: Yes
• Credit cards: Most
• Details: Full bar
• Prices: Lunch and dinners, $8 to $29

GALLERY ECLECTIC BISTRO

Tampa, Jacksonville

(813) 353-3838 Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon to 9 p.m. Sunday

• Reservations: Yes
• Credit cards: Most
• Details: Full bar
• Prices: Lunch, $6.95 to $11.95; dinner entrees, $12.95 to $23.95

KAHUNAVILLE

Tampa, Wilmington, Del., seven other locations

(813) 348-2011 Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday-Saturday

• Reservations: No
• Credit cards: Most
• Details: Full bar
• Prices: Lunch and dinner, $7.49 to $21.99

PROFUSION

Tampa, Montreal

(813) 353-8400 Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. lunch, 5:30 to 10 p.m. dinner, Monday-Friday; 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday; 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday

• Reservations: Yes
• Credit cards: Most
• Details: Full bar
• Prices: Lunch, $9.88 to $12.88; dinner, $11.88 to $17.88

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