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Dive Coastal Cuisine: Recession Buster, Or Soon-to-be-Bust?
By Sponge-Law Reviewers-Pants
Ahoy there! This month’s port of call, and other nautical allusions, took us to Dive Coastal Cuisine in SniderPlaza, where we witnessed either the end of the Great Recession, the continuation of the Great Denial That There Was Ever A Problem or, as we prefer to call it, Thursday. For many, many years, the space was occupied by a mostly beloved grease spot called Ball’s Hamburgers. But then, wearing grease-smelling fragrances went out of fashion, so the Dallas Sidekicks’ and 1970’s Texas Rangers’ memorabilia was scraped off the wall and the space became a Dunkin’ Donuts. Apparently, University Park does not “run on Dunkin” because 8 minutes later it became Dive Coastal Cuisine, awkwardly sandwiched between the innards of Snider Plaza and a bank.
As it was when Ball’s ruled the block, parking is as stressful as ever in SniderPlaza – we recommend having your driver wait on a nearby street rather than park. With its updated interior, Dive’s look is sleek and not what you’d expect for a place with a nautical theme, what with its chrome and white interior to go along with its chrome and white patrons.
But back to our oblique recession comment above – thanks for your patience! This ain’t no hamburger or donut joint. Though Dive is counter service, it’s not cheap. A lunch of roasted eggplant, red pepper and garlic dip ($4), an ahi tuna wrap ($9) and an iced tea from the “organic iced tea bar” ($3) will set you back almost $18. And what you get for that $18 is a mixed bag.
The selection of dips was by far the highlight of our lunch visit. The eggplant dip was more of a chunky spread, with a more subtle garlic flavor than its title implies. $4 gets you a generous bowl surrounded by rectangles of flat/pita-bread and crackers covered in seeds. “White bean and garbanzo hummus” (How about: Hummus with white beans? Whatev) was atypical but outstanding on a hot summer day – instead of garlic, the dominant flavor second to the beans was lemon, lots of lemon, and it worked. The hummus was also slightly chunky, and between the eggplant spread and the hummus, we could have called it a day.
We also enjoyed the ceviche of the day ($10), which consisted of fresh chunks of grouper doused in lime juice with diced onions, tomatoes and cilantro, a side of crispy plantain chips and their not-so-secret Cholula hot sauce. Then the tuna wrap arrived. The tuna in the tuna wrap was just awful, with too much connective tissue to chew and “seared” to the point that an honest description would be “cooked.” The tuna disappointed big time, especially since the wrap cost $9 – more than two of those delicious dips. Insipid $9 tuna wraps may just solve our overfishing problem, though, by driving demand down!
Hey, speaking of overpriced -- who cares if it’s organic, who cares if it comes in three distinct flavors, who cares if the cups are made of corn magic that decomposes and turns into unicorn tears the instant it’s thrown away - $3 for tea is ridiculous, even in tony SniderPlaza. Chalk that one up to our fault; as the most seasoned restaurant critics this side of Paris (Texas), we should have known better.
A separate take-out dinner was less disappointing. The special turbot baked in a paper bag with vegetables & fennel ($17) just about lived up to its price point by providing two nicely sized filets cooked perfectly flakey and accompanied by crunchy, fresh broccolini, tomatoes and fingerling potatoes. The only slight disappointment was the lack of a discernible fennel taste. The Peruvian Crab and Potato Salad ($7) contained some deliciously moist lump crab cakes, but a whole lot of lettuce overtook the potatoes and other elements in the salad.
So, on our overfished five gavel scale, where five gavels is Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama and one gavel is Jaws 3-D (according to IMDB.com, Dennis Quaid once said, "I was in Jaws what?"), we give Dive Coastal Cuisine two and one-quarter gavels, or the Miami Dolphins’ logo. Seriously – a dolphin wearing a helmet?
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