Banana Boat — Restaurant in Boynton Beach

It's been a really long time since I've been to Banana Boat. I live in Boynton Beach but I haven't been in over a decade! I am so glad I have rediscovered Banana Boat as they have really great dishes and views.

Arriving on a Saturday, there was a 30 minute wait for outdoor seating around 3PM. I thought that was long since it wasn't exactly lunch or dinner but the wait was worth it. I received a buzzer and walked around the restaurant's exterior. Once we were seated, we noticed that the fans above outside were very strong. It was windy and kept blowing on our table. I can see the pro - no bugs. However, it was cold for me. We ended up moving to a booth by the water and it was a much more pleasant experience! We really enjoyed the boats and jet skis passing by. A great view.

For our appetizer, we started off with the calamari and crispy Thai fried shrimp. The calamari came with marinara sauce and lemon. Very fresh and tasty. The crispy Thai fried shrimp was also great. We then got our entrees, and wow the portions! Definitely can be split into 2 meals. The chicken Parmesan was delicious. It was 3 full chicken cutlets, pasta, and toast. The shrimp and scallop scampi was also very memorable. I thought the shrimp were a perfect size. The scallops were very fresh and the linguini in the white wine garlic sauce kept my fork going back for more. This pasta also came with toast. We were all impressed with our entrees.

For dessert, we tried the brownie stack and we were not impressed. It's probably because we were assuming it'd be something similar to a molten lava cake with the ice cream on top. The brownies it came with weren't as sweet and had nuts in them. They did give a good amount of ice cream with this dessert dish though. It was okay.

We are so glad we gave it a try and we are looking forward to coming back for the food...

Let me start by saying that this is going to be the best four-star review that I will ever give to a restaurant, as it could’ve easily been five stars with a few tweaks.

This is a great spot with both indoor and outdoor sitting areas and bars , but the reality is you just wanna be out on the deck. For an 80° day I wasn’t expecting it to be so breezy that evening, but I wish someone told me that the guts could get pretty cool as I would’ve been much more comfortable. That being said, the beers on tap and the live music certainly made up for it. The band was great playing tunes from Bob Marley, sublime, Tina Turner and The Beatles. They really set the mood. Also plenty of large TVs around the bar if there’s a sporting event going on (we happen to go on Friday night during NBA playoffs).

Once we got seated, we put in our order the other thing that they don’t tell you is that once they put in your order, you cannot change it even if you tell them two seconds after they entered it into the computer. That being said, there’s really only one thing you need to know about the menu. Get the coconut shrimp appetizer and then get the coconut shrimp for your main meal. Yes it was that good. It also came with a really good mango salsa that complemented the dish very well. If you’re looking to include a non-seafood item I recommend the Korean short rib, spring rolls.

The dessert was equally as good… We just ordered a piece of Key-lime pie to share for the table. Every part of it was amazing from the actual pie to the whipped cream to the berry sauce on the plate for dipping.

So the recap atmosphere and vibe was great but bring a long sleeve item in case it was windy like it was when I went. Food was incredible across the board. And just make sure you order what you really want because if you try to change it, it’ll...

Let’s start on a good note: service is great and the atmosphere is fun, it’s a crowded place and most customers are above 65, but it’s a very energetic place. That being said, the food is too expensive for what they served, it was just a normal night out for us, we had a crab cake appetizer, which was wonderful but after that everything went downhill, we had a French Onion soup, very bland and definitely not the best, also a Conch chowder that had no conch in it and tasted like unseasoned salsa, very off putting, the main course was a seafood mix platter, and that is where it went horribly wrong, the menu advertised grilled Lobster Tail, shrimp and scallops, we had high expectations, for being a place on the water it implies the food supposed to be fresh, but it clearly was not, the shrimps on the plate (only 2) were bigger than the lobster tail, it was easy to compare because they were next to each other, they split the lobster tails in half, and each haft were considerably smaller than the shrimp, the shrimp also frozen and it wrapped around a scallop, to be fair the scallops (only 2) were the only thing that was right, but could use some seasoning, this is an grilled seafood platter, I don’t know about you but the shrimp was so overcooked that rubbery doesn’t even begin to describe, the lobster was my greatest disappointment, how can anyone cook that to the point that it was CRISPY? Just like the shrimp rubbery does not describe it, we had a hard time getting it out of the shell, it felt like it welded itself to it. Seriously, how can you cook shrimp and lobster to the point of CRISPY AND RUBBERY at the same time? Very disappointing, we wouldn’t mind to have drinks there but definitely won’t eat...