Laishley Crab House — Restaurant in Punta Gorda

Place is very well kept and clean when we walked up stairs. There is also elevator access for those in need. Our waitress was kind and polite. Ambiance is quiet and with intimate lighting. Found a bunch of crumbs under the table, because I was wondering where the “crunchy” noise was coming from.

Appetizers: Home Made New England Clam Chowder: Overly seasoned, with no clam. $7 for a cup which is the size of a expresso cup. Crab Artichoke Dip: Tasted absolutely terrible. No way of getting around that.

Main Course: Chicken Florentine: Excessive amount of spinach. Hush puppies were hard as a rock. Chicken tasted old. • Mash Potatoes and Mushroom Cream Sauce was exceptionally good.

Alaskan King Crab (1.0 LBS) Market Value ($75) • King Crab was great, but slightly old. You can tell when crab is old by two things: 1. The ends of the leg have a bitter taste, 2. The color and texture of the shell. If it takes a significant amount of energy to crack the shell, they are absolutely fresh. The more “flexible” the shell is, the older it is. The Crab meat was of medium age and I received 3 legs and 1 arm. Medium age meaning that they are not 100% mature, but are of decent size. When they are fully mature, the legs and arms are 2 inches in diameter or larger. Again, the hush puppies I received with my order were like pebbles I could skip across the Peace River. The Potatoes I received had a great flavor to them, but for some reason, they were a bit soggy only on one end. I ate one after I found the sogginess. The Corn-On-The-Cobb was old. You can tell by the discoloration of the core and the flavor of juices. Each bite was inconsistent. Some had juice, another bite was dry.

Overall, the place is nice, but after spending $130 before tip, it is not worth the value in return. I love seafood. I’ve been eating, catching and cooking fish and crabs since I was a kid, so I know what quality should be. I do not mind paying a premium for high quality food. In this case, a majority of the food received, did not make the mark. The Waitress was the best part of our experience.

0.5 Star for Quality of Restaurant. 1 Star for the Waitress. 0.5 Star for the King Crab 0 Star for the Appetizers 0 Star for the...

*Update * I have been since this original post and it was fantastic again!! Steak, Lobster, Crab Legs, all good. I could just give it 5 across the board and call it done but I wouldn’t be doing my fellow, serious foodie reviewer’s on here (👀you know who you are) justice. You want all the subtle nuances right? My followers know I’m serious bout my biddness. Here goes; Here in south Florida most restaurants with a view like this don’t really care if the food is good. Let’s face it, they don’t have to. We’ll eat crap because we like the view. You will be so pleasantly surprised to see what VANESSA (waitress) and Jason (manager OD)have in store for you here. Ask for her, she is seriously one of the best waitresses I’ve had in florida to date. Very professional, knew her product and helped us with our decisions and questions with a good knowledge of what she was selling, we took a minute to look at the menu and I never felt rushed. Through out the meal we never felt Vanessa was far but she didn’t hover. She refilled our glasses, brought us a few condiments as we asked but she never disappeared leaving us searching and I greatly appreciated that. I waited no more than 60 seconds for anything. My dinner partner had stuffed shrimp, she always makes me try her food and it was fantastic! Shrimp perfectly cooked with a stuffing that was better than the shrimp actually. I could of eaten a plate of that alone. I had a Asian Ginger salad and the Eel sushi which were both very delicious. Big pieces of Eel and very freshly made. Upon departure I wanted to tell the manager (Jason) how much we enjoyed our dinner with Venessa. Jason turned out to be equally as impressive. Very engaged and didn’t simply say thanks and run off. He asked how it was good, what we liked etc. Don’t just go for the view, go for the food and the view is a bonus. For the quality of food and prep. plus the view I expected to pay a lot more. It’s a serious bargain. I hope you...

Went here for my Sister-in-law's birthday dinner. 4 total people. Service was so terrible we had to request a different waitress after she got mouthy with us asking her where our appetizers were after over an hour of waiting. Manager came and then we were asked if we were offered bread yet? We said nope, we didn't even know you had bread. He got us a new waitress who was 10x better than the other one. Bread was the only thing edible out of everything we ordered. It was hot and fresh and delicious. No matter what they couldn't get a simple cranberry and vodka drink right. Brought us different Martini's 3 times instead of the correct drinks and insisted they were vodka and cranberry drinks. We in the end had the new waitress just bring us glasses of cranberry juice and double shots of grey goose from the bar and made our own drinks. Portions were pitiful(My lobster tail $18 dollar add on was smaller than the portion cup of clarified butter!). We got the "Alaskan king crab bucket" at $52 might I add and it came with 3 crab legs that didn't even fill the plate they were sitting on, Absolutely pathetic! Made Red Lobster look like they had enormous crab legs. Next up NOTHING was hot all of our sides were ice cold and the fries were cold and burnt. Steaks were laughably thin and flavorless. $40 dollar fillet that came out was thinner then my little finger. We have had better $10 dollar Walmart steaks that blew these out of the water. I am not sure what the appeal is to people to come back here. The food is mediocre at best, portion sizes tiny. This place is definitely a tourist trap. Service was Abhorrent! Fire those bad attitude waitresses they are running your business into the ground. We spent almost $400 here. I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that none of us will EVER visit again. This is a warning to all others....