News
By LAURA Reiley
Times Food Critic
TAMPA
It opened as Hula Bay Club during Super Bowl weekend, hosting a Nick Lachey/NASCAR's Jimmie Johnson charity fundraiser, a Playboy Playmate Stephanie Larimore bikini contest and a party with rocker Dave Navarro. Whew, that's a heavy-duty opening weekend.
Owned by Green Iguana Group (various Green Iguana locations, Buddha Lounge and the Retreat), Hula Bay Club took up the space of the defunct Rattlefish Raw Bar & Grill, another waterside Tampa party palace for which I wasn't quite cool enough.
No matter. Hula Bay is a members-only club with docking facilities at the Bayside Marina for a couple dozen boats, a gorgeous swimming pool with cabanas and about 14,000 square feet of dining and drinking space. And I'm a card-carrying member.
In truth, everyone who visits becomes a member (something about the restaurant's zoning), with no fee, no special qualifications and no minimum purchases.
On weekends there's a rotating cast of DJs and bands out by the pool while sports-watching takes place in earnest in the attached Duke's Retired Surfers Bar (named for surfing legend Duke Kahanamoku).
The dining room is an indoor-outdoor sprawl with great views of the dockhand keeping things orderly at the water's edge.
This beachy-islandy-good times bar and restaurant is served by a menu that is suitably casual, seafood oriented and tropical. Service is correspondingly relaxed and sunny — in fact, the most stressful thing about Hula Bay may be finding it the first time (when you see the huge, yellow, boxy building, turn left; Hula Bay is at the end of the parking lot).
By and large, you've seen this menu before. The best appetizer is a "Molten Martini" ($9.50) of fried shrimp doused in sweet chili sauce reminiscent of Bonefish Grill's bang-bang version.
The signature burger ($9) is a teriyaki-ladled patty topped with grilled pineapple, bacon and Swiss — a solid effort — and the chicken version ($10) is an even more satisfying sandwich.
Coconut fried shrimp ($9) and shrimp tempura sushi ($8), though crowd-pleasers, might benefit if paired with less sweet pineapple goo, and in fact many of the sushi rolls exhibit an over-reliance on sweet eel sauce and plate scribbles of spicy Sriracha. Often a pared-back roll showcases the delicate flavors of raw ahi, crab stick or lobster more effectively.
But maybe I'm being a grouch. Hula Bay isn't about culinary refinement (Exhibit A: the neon-colored Hawaiian Freeze cocktail that looks like a boozy bomb pop) as much as it is about fun.
A trio of warm grilled mahimahi tacos ($11), with its accompanying tray of rice and beans, guac and sour cream, shredded lettuce and pico de gallo, especially when assembled on the patio as the sun slips blushingly past the horizon line, makes you glad to be a card-carrying member.
Laura Reiley can be reached at lreiley@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2293. Her blog, the Mouth of Tampa Bay, is at blogs.tampabay.com/dining. Reiley dines anonymously and unannounced. The Times pays all expenses. Advertising has nothing to do with selection for review or the assessment.
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