Red Fish, Blue Fish in Pensacola, FL

~ Clarissa

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I think we have finally found one of those places in Florida where Canadians flock to lose weight. The sun, the beach, a lot of swimming – and absolutely no food. Or at least there is nothing that anybody who is not a hard-core American identifies as food.

Today we visited a “restaurant” called Red Fish, Blue Fish. If you ever come across this den of iniquity, folks, please stay away. It is a scary, scary place that does horrible things to both food and customers.

For some confusing reason, this place is ultra-popular. We had to wait for an hour to be seated. This, of course, made us think RFBF had to be a very good place.

“I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a McDonald’s kind of place,” N joked. And to be honest, I’d much rather have gone to McDonald’s. It serves garbage, too, but at least its garbage is cheap and doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t.

Everything at this place is made of
plastic: forks, knives, wine glasses, and food. The “restaurant” is big and serves a crowd every night, even now during the off-season. The damage they do to the environment is scary to contemplate.

I was served a piece of the driest mahi mahi I have ever encountered in my life. I had never considered mahi mahi to be indigenous to the Gulf Coast but the way it was cooked at Red Fish Blue Fish is an indignity that no formerly living creature should ever experience. The sad ancient fish fillet was lying on something called “Asian slaw.” In case you are wondering what that is, carelessly shredded lettuce leaves and pieces of carrot with a drop of balsamic vinaigrette are what passes for Asian in Pensacola.

N was given a seafood platter that consisted of a scary looking mountain of very salty and overfried batter. After digging through the batter for a while, we discovered that it concealed extremely dry and tortured bits of seafood. One has to be a real enemy of humanity to deep fry oysters in batter.

There were also fries of which I managed to eat exactly one in the entire night. It was so chewy that chewing gum companies should ask this restaurant for the recipe of the chewiest thing in the world.

And if you think this was a cheap restaurant, think again. The prices are definitely not in the fast food bracket.

Yesterday we saw fishers catching really amazing fish right in front of us. I have no idea how the inhabitants of this town manage to serve such incredible garbage while sitting among such a plethora of fantastic seafood.

The mystery of how such a horrible restaurant manages to attract a huge crowd will haunt me forever.

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Published by Clarissa

11 thoughts on “Red Fish, Blue Fish in Pensacola, FL”

  1. I have found it hard to find food in Pensacola. One restaurant we finally found one time had a cover charge, just to get in — very irritating, but we paid it because it seemed to have something edible inside. Upon leaving, we discovered it was being picketed for sinfulness because it also had a bar; the assumption was that it was a pick-up joint. I was with one man and one other women, friends, none of us a couple. The picketers jumped on the man, saying he was a miserable sinner. We could not figure it out (he also happened to be a former Protestant pastor and still quite a virtuous person) … finally they explained their assumption was that he had picked up two women at once, and was therefore extra-bad.

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  2. P.S. The key weirditude in this debacle was that the picketers were aged 15. I know, because we asked. What amazed us the most was the dirty minds of these children…

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  3. Other than a few good barbecue places, North Florida has some of the worst food in the world. I grew up a bit more east, but it’s the same from end to end.

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    1. Well, I guess we could use the opportunity to lose weight.

      This is incomprehensible because with this abundance of local fish, one could eat like a king. Just don’t mess with the fish and you are good.

      Floridians eat like they are in subarctic temperatures. And the climate doesn’t justify that. How do they manage not to get hugely obese?

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  4. We were looking for a meal in Ft. Lauderdale and were grateful to find a Burger King. Is that pathetic or what?
    I do not like Florida at all.

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  5. If you think what they do to seafood is bad, wait till you see what they do to freshwater fish.

    I still shudder at a catfish dinner I was dumb enough to order once somewhere in a small town between Pensacola and Tallahassee.

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    1. I have been visited by a horrrible suspcicion. What if this restaurant is so popular because all the rest are EVEN WORSE?

      And this is why people become vampires: because there is nothing better to eat.

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  6. You went to a restaurant that has only been open about a month which is why it was probably so busy. There is good food at the beach. Go to Grand Marlin or Pegleg Pete’s and try the grouper which is a local fish. Pensacola also has one of the best fish markets on the coast Frank Patti’s will amaze you. It is downtown on A street, you might also eat at The FishHouse downtown. We do eat great seafood here, you just have to know where to find it.

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