The first time I ever visited this site was back in the 1960s when it was Patricia Murphy’s, that elegant expression of restauranting, with lavish use of candlelight, acres of fresh flowers, long-gowned women and popovers. Oh, those popovers.
Patricia Murphy’s is long gone — even the building has been demolished — but, I found to my pleasant surprise a few weeks ago, more than the memory lingers on. The popovers are still being served, along with curls of butter and preserves. And they’re still presented warm and they’re still terrific.
At breakfast — where I like to start my day with the Power Breakfast, a $13.95 parade of everything, pastries, tropical fruit, eggs any which way with sausage and bacon, French toast made from raisin challah, glasses of Perrier and cups of strong coffee — I found only cheery smiles and at night a hostess who could write the book on how to make guests feel as if they are really welcome.
The production from the kitchen is called Contemporary Cuisine and that’s as good a name as any for such appetizers as smoked duck breast served with candied shallots and boysenberry jelly, chilled shrimp and star fruit served en brochette with a cocktail sauce described as calypso, and spaghetti squash marinara, three of the headliners among the seven starters priced from $3.95 to $12.95.
How else to describe pot roast cooked with cabernet, chicken with lemon rind and rosemary, veal layered with Swiss cheese and mushrooms in lime-caper butter? Of course, it’s contemporary.
And at the Seaview it’s competently executed, as we learned when praising that smoked duck starter and the French onion soup, made with a fine combination of provolone and Cheddar for a bit of unusual zing.
Next time around — and the new menu at the Seaview is too good not to have many next times — we’ll have the $4.25 Best of Bisque creation, a blending of the chilled avocado-crab bisque with the hot one made with lobster.
And we will follow that with the recommended catch from the Keys, which happened to be cobia.
Cobia is a wonderful catch, especially if the person in charge of the grilling knows how to treat it with the respect that is certainly due.
The back room passed the test at full mast; in fact, better than passed, with the thick steak of swordfish, a regular on the menu at $16.50. Thick is the only way to have that magnificent creature, but at today’s increasing prices, most places are slicing it thinner in order to cover more of the plate so the customer doesn’t think the owner is cheating him.
It’s far better to have something as small, and as select, as a filet mignon to collect and keep the special texture and taste of swordfish intact; but, alas, appearances seem to be everything.
So the steak was thick, but it was on the grill too long, and part of it was overly dry. However, the orange-spiked hollandaise helped to compensate.
We also liked the side stack of sauteed squash with a bit of onion and lots of character — another indication that the Seaview kitchen knows what it’s doing.
There’s a salad bar as well, but we had to wonder why Bahia Mar bothers. Is it to satisfy their out-of-towners who expect to find such a buffet in a hotel? Is it to save labor and money? Whatever the reason, it’s just another salad bar and we felt it was superfluous, although the dressings were good.
But we didn’t need to question the wine list with its California emphasis or the dessert of white chocolate mousse brought to life with raspberry liqueur. There’s also Key lime pie, blueberry cheesecake and a variety of ice creams and sherbets, but none of those tempted us.
We had overindulged in those popovers and when walking around the campus, to work off some of those calories (we should have had the spaghetti squash marinara as entree — it’s only 500 calories), we thought again of Patricia Murphy, recalling fine family gatherings by the marina and remembering her splendid indoor, water-laced wonder up in Deerfield Beach.
Good heavens! That must be thousands of meals ago and hundreds of popovers. I’m working toward a million.
SEAVIEW
Bahia Mar 801 Seabreeze Blvd. (State Road A1A) 764-2233
Cost: expensive
Credit cards: AE, MC, V
Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily
