On our last night in Fort Lauderdale, the girls and I decided to go out to a fancy pants dinner in the heart of Las Olas Blvd. I had heard that the chef was on Top Chef so that made me even more excited, but upon further research he was on Iron Chef America - still not bad but not as big of a deal to me. In any case, this place is a bit on the higher end of restaurants in Ft. Lauderdale - it's definitely not your regular beach bar hang out.
Unfortunately we weren't able to get a table on the sidewalk and had to sit in the back, which was kind of dark and quiet but it ended up being fine. The menu has a pretty big surf and turf feel to it with lots of seafood dishes, meat dishes and seafood and meat combination dishes. Not much for vegetarians unless you just want to have a salad. We opted to split the poke ($14), duck meatballs ($13) and the Thai bbq lamb ribs ($15). Krush and I are both obsessed with poke and while this one was totally fine it wasn't the same as the kind you get in Hawaii (what is really?). The duck meatballs were made with pesto, pine nuts and a demi glaze on top and served on a bed of portobello mash. The were pretty flavorful and the mash added a nice touch to it to keep it moist. The bbq ribs had a red curry vinaigrette coating and fell off the bone pretty nicely. It was a bit too dry on the outside for me but that is probably due to the crushed pistachios on the outside of the ribs. While it didn't seem like we ordered too many appetizers, we were all pretty full so that by the time our entrees came out, most of us could barely finish our meals. I was torn between ordering the yellowtail snapper, surf and turf or the scallops - even though I love scallops I usually don't order them in restaurants because I find them totally overpriced but for some reason I was drawn to this one because it also came with beef short rib, truffle mashed potatoes and chilled lobster salad ($38). How could I turn down scallops, short rib, mashed potatoes and lobster salad in one dish?! I've come to expect scallop dishes in restaurants to be pretty sparse, so when my dish came out and there are one 2 pieces of scallop I wasn't surprised but still a bit disappointed. But after eating the extremely rich and hearty dish, I now know why they only had 2 pieces - you won't be able to eat more than 2. The scallops pieces were quite large and seared just right so that they weren't overcooked. The dish was one giant decadent variation on surf and turf. They used a particularly heavy hand of butter on the mashed potatoes (surprise surprise) which was a bit too much for me. I was a bit let down by how small of a portion the lobster salad was - it was a very tiny bite of cold lobster with a bit of mayo and celery but I'm guessing they probably would have charged more if they had a larger portion. I would have been happier with more lobster and less short rib just to lighten up the dish a bit. The other girls got surf and turf and mahi mahi dishes and they all looked delicious if not also very heavy and a bit overwhelming after all our cocktails and appetizers.
Johnny V's is definitely a nicer end establishment in what is essentially a beach town. The prices were a bit high than what I would expect for Fort Lauderdale but the portions and ingredients used were large and top notch. If it's possible, I would recommend trying to get a table outside on the sidewalk so that you can people watch because being put in the back room isn't quite as festive but if you're with a good group of people, it doesn't really matter so much. Total bill: $97/pp with drinks, tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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