Harry's Seafood Bar & Grille - Gainesville, FL

In Gainesville I stopped at the University of Florida campus to see the football stadium known as The Swamp. I was impressed that it was open to the public. Like the University of Oklahoma, they have a Heisman plaza, but fewer Heismans to show-off. 

The no. of NCAA football championships is exhibited everywhere.

Just before coming here I visited Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, in the Gainesville city limits and full of alligators. After that visit, the "Swamp" and the "gator chomp" have new meaning for me. 

Before leaving for Orlando, where I was going to a seminar, I stopped for dinner at Harry's Seafood Bar & Grille. I'd looked it up ahead of time and had my eyes on some menu items including grouper fingers and an oyster po'boy. 

I got some bread and butter to open.

I ordered the grouper fingers which are pieces of grouper dipped in seasoned corn flour, fried, then dusted with cajun spices and served with "deviled" tartar sauce. The grouper fingers which sounded very interesting were just okay. 

But the menu  and the waiter did change my mind on the po'boy. I switched to the crab crusted redfish royale which was blackened redfish, topped with crab, then served over corn maque choux, mashed potatoes and Louisiana beurre blanc. Redfish, also known as channel bass, is found off the Atlantic Coast, from Massachusetts to Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico. Maque choux is a French Creole word pronounced like "mock shoe" and is a corn based dish in which onions and peppers are cooked in butter, then garlic, corn (and sometimes tomatoes) and heavy cream are added and then reduced until the sauce is thick. Beurre blanc is French for "white butter" and is a hot emulsified butter sauce made with a reduction of vinegar and/or white wine and gray shallots into which softened whole butter is whisked in off the heat to prevent separation. I love meals that I have to use a dictionary to look up the words to understand. Everything about this dish was amazing. The redfish was good, the crab was good, the mashed potatoes were good and the sauce and maque choux were good. All added together, the combination was excellent. 

The mashed potatoes are snuggled under the refish.

The presentatation was very appealing. 

I would go back for that.