Month: December 2006

My local IT department had our holiday dinner at the plainly named Aquarium Restaurant last night. That’s the restaurant attached to the also simply named Downtown Aquarium here in Denver. More on the Aquarium below …

The restaurant serves both families and visitors to the Aquarium, as well as hosting special groups (the adjoining bar and Nautilus Ballroom was hosting a very fancy soiree while we were there). That mixed usage, as well as trying to be a destination restaurant in its own right makes it a challenge for the Aquarium Restaurant to figure out it’s mission.

I’m not sure the degree to which the restaurant is associated with Landry’s, which bought the Aquarium a while back (prompting many jokes about what happens to the denizens of exhibits that close).

Overall
Food		Service
Ambiance		Prices	???

Food: As a group function, we were on a fixed menu — house or ceasar salad or lobster bisque; Mediterranean chicken, pasta primavera, or grilled salmon; cheesecake; two drink tickets. That didn’t give us a good feel for the breadth and overall quality of the food (though a couple of people cajoled the waitress into offering a couple of hamburgers), but from what we did taste, the quality was pretty good.

My caesar salad had a bit of garlic bite and was made with anchovy paste (though not overpoweringly so). Margie’s lobster bisque was reputedly quite good (I heard this echoed up and down the table). My salmon was tasty and well-cooked, solid, with a nice hickory and salmon flavor. It was served with a skewer of roasted veggies that were perfect for each bite of salmon. The rice pilaf was a bit less successful; the flavoring and texture was mixed.

I had a gin martini for cocktails, which was made well, and a glass of undistinguished cab. The wine list looked decent enough, if not spectacular, and there was a good array of beers and specialty drinks advertised.

I’d recommend the food to anyone, especially given that it was a limited “banquet” menu.

Service: This was where things fell apart quite a bit, for reasons not altogether clear. They were very late in seating us — we had an 8 p.m. reservation, and we didn’t get seated until 8:30, and didn’t get our orders in until closer ot 9. Part of that may have been confusion over the size of our party — initially reserved at 25, turned out to be 10, but the manager/maitre d’ didn’t seem to realize that (though I’m sure they were called on Thursday) until well after 8.

The waitress we had started off brisk and business-like, except for long intervals between visiting us. Her manner became a lot more grumpy over the course of the evening, radiating off little “I don’t want to be here” rays from her head that were almost visible. Despite the slow service, when she was there she was highly professional in her service and style (voice tone aside), got all the orders right and served properly. Not sure if she was cranky because of folks cajoling her for exceptions to the meal, to
pool drink tickets for a bottle of wine, because she was getting a smaller tip (because of a smaller group) than expected, or some sort of backstage melodrama. It was still irksome.

They were also clearing tables for some sort of function (presumably this morning) that involved actually clearing the table and chairs out of the dining room, while we (and a few other closing-down-the-place-at-10:15 folks) still sat. This involved opening the back door repeatedly out into the night and carrying the tables and chairs out there — complete with a gust of Arctic Air into the dining room, leading to shivering, slowness, and a bit of confusion. That was just sort of rude.

Ambience: The restaurant wraps round the south end of the building, and that inward curve has a massive fish tank visible from all over the room. That’s a nice touch. The rest of the decor is mixed — rough-textured walls and decor to make one feel as though they are “under the sea,” but the style of the decor is too much, too mixed, too abstract in some places and concrete in others (not unlike the Aquarium itself). The result was mixed.

That’s not counting that Chill Wind we kept being subjected too more and more frequently during the evening.

Prices: Hard to say, since it was a departmental function. Given that it’s a family restaurant in addition to everything else, the prices were probably pretty reasonable. Note that parking across the street is $6, but that’s just the cost of dining downtown.

Overall: I’d go back here again, but I’m not sure when. Not so much into crowds (the place was packed when we arrived around 7), the food is good but not faboo (and not everything I’d want, given the other options downtown), and the service was a bit off-putting. I don’t expect to visit the Downtown Aquarium any time again soon, and even if I did, I doubt I’d make the Aquarium Restaurant my dining pick.

That said, if I were invited to go there, for another function or just by someone else, I wouldn’t shrink away. Draw your own conclusions.

The Aquarium Restaurant, The Downtown Aquarium, 700 Water St., Denver, CO 80211.

We hadn’t been to the Downtown Aquarium since shortly after it opened several years ago, dubbed at the time Ocean Journeys. At the time it was a small aquarium, with very nice exhibits that paralleled two different river journeys down to the ocean, culminating in a humongous fish tank full of sharks and other denizens of the deep. Some great stuff — otters and ducks were particularly nicely situated, and there was even a set of tigers in a large enclosure that was pretty cool.

Problem is, it was too short a visit for the admission price. And once folks had seen it, the return traffic was pretty minimal. Despite public funding, the place was going to go under, until it was saved at the last second by Landry’s Restaurants, which bought it lock, stock, and shark.

The evolution since then has been mixed. The place is definitely still in business, which seemed unlikely at the time. By the same token, while Landry’s has kept it going, it’s done so with a lot of “cost-added” features. You can pan for gold. You can feed the mantas. Ch-ching. The added atmospherics — a sunken ship, an underwater temple — are a bit tawdry, and numerous displays are lacking info on the fish and other critters therein. It’s one part education, one part side show, one part Disney, one part zoo,
one part gift shop — mix briefly.

And, honestly, it’s still a pretty short visit. Adult admission is $13, kids are $8, but Margie and I toured the places, reading most of the signs and stopping along the way to watch the exhibit, in about half an hour, not counting eating and gift shopping. That’s pretty steep. After 6 p.m. prices drop to $10 and $7, still steep. And the shortness of the exhibit means it’s not something folks are going to go to once or twice a year, like the zoo (whose admission rates are cheaper), but more like once every 3-4
years. How Landry’s makes a go of it, I’m not sure — though I’m glad they do, and I suspect facility rental and restaurant income are a big part of it. Indeed, props to them for their hours being open until 10 p.m. Sun-Thu, 11 p.m. Fri-Sat; those extended hours not only provide more opportunity for folks to visit, but make it a decent “after dinner, what?” destination, too.