Gabriela's Seafood + Tapas — Restaurant in Rockport

The family and I had dinner here. We went on a weekday, and there were only a few tables being used and a couple people at the bar. This restraunt is very small. A converted house, not very well converted, that is only about 15 feet across and deeper than it is wide. Because of the cramped seating area it would be difficult to navigate in a wheelchair. The aisles between tables are just not wide enough. There is a ramp at the door, however and the restroom technically meets state requirements. If you look at the pictures though you'll see that the only rail is not much help. I also noticed that there were no children. No one but me and the waitress were under 50, and not a high chair in sight. I looked. The ceiling is gone, allowing for a look at the inside of a pitched roof thats built almost like a barn, except the duct work would be hidden better in a barn. I immediately began to wonder how they keep dust...from collecting on the shrimp net that was draped around the ducting. Another distraction came when we were seated and I realized that though there were cloth napkins, there was freezer paper placed over the table surface. Maybe it's just me, but the cognitive dissonance that these things, and the plain paper menu caused when I looked at the menu prices was disturbing. The food: I ordered the chicken fried chicken which comes with pickled green beans and mash potato on a bed of baby spinach. I skipped the pickled green beans. I just can't. I like fresh green beans too much. My mom ordered the fried shrimp, and a side of brussel sprouts as no sides come with this entree. My son ordered the gumbo. My chicken was crispy and though the breast was thick it seemed to be cooked through. My potato was also very good. Buttery, smashed, instead of whipped, and included a few chunks and pieces of peel. This place is known for thier seafood though, and fifty foot from little bay thats natural so let's talk about the shrimp. The shrimp was a mix of white and red shrimp. Striations or white streaks on the red shrimp tails made it obvious that the red shrimp had been frozen. In our opinion this is unacceptable when there are TWO harbors close by where the local whites can be purchased daily! The portion was also a disappointment when considering the price. The brussel sprouts were chewy, undercooked, and greasy. Other than the fact that the tails were left on the shrimp in the gumbo, my son enjoyed it very much though he was still hungry when he finished it. For dessert I tried the chocolate pot. This is a dark chocolate pudding with whip on it in a small mason jar. It was very good, and almost worth the 8+$, but honestly we didn't find much value here. The service was excellent, but everything else seemed to have some small draw back and that never leaves me feeling satisfied. When the bill, with tip, for a party of 4 is over 105$ I REALLY WANT TO FEEL SATISFIED. Overall I found the experience disappointing and the restraunt to be a pretentious, hipster tourist trap. We...

I had read an article about this restaurant and really wanted to try it, because of the "glowing" article, also I just love the name and the look of the place. My husband and I stopped in late Sunday morning for brunch. I ordered the Glow Benedict and my husband ordered the Rockport chowder, both with the intention of sharing each others meals. The Glow Benedict is crab and shrimp cakes with poached eggs, hollandaise and garlic roast potatoes. We thought the seafood in the Benedict was some strong tasting oysters, based on the taste of it. After reading the description again, if that was crab and shrimp cakes, there was something really off about them. The hollandaise was ok, but there was not enough of it to really get a taste of it. The garlic roast potatoes were the best thing about the dish. They were cooked perfectly and were slightly crispy with good flavor. The Rockport chowder was a thin milky soup with a crab and what my husband said was another strong tasting oyster. I thought it was too thin, but hubs liked it like that. Just for the record, we do love oysters, as long as they are fresh. The bacon Bloody Mare was good and hubs had the guava Bellini, which was good as well. The service was excellent, from the very friendly and professional Mel. It did take what seemed like an unusually long time for our food to come out, which was surprising, since we were the only customers in the restaurant at the time. I might possibly try it again, for happy hour, but probably not for brunch. I really wanted to love this place, but unfortunately it is only 3 stars, most of that due to the service and atmosphere. Edit: This review is NOT for Gabriela's Seafood & Tapas. Not sure why this review carried over to the new restaurant. I have never visited them, but I look forward to trying them out the next time I am...

We had really high hopes for this “authentic” tapas restaurant. The vibe was nothing really special. It’s cute, but really just an extended build of the previous restaurant that was there (Glow). The Queso de Cabra (goat cheese) dish was fantastic! It was unique and something I’ve never seen before. The pecans that covered the goat cheese paired with tomato sauce was the perfect topping for the lightly toasted bread that accompanied it. The cocktail was overpriced and disappointing. I had the “Calmate Mojito”; a lavender infused mint beverage that was lacking any true notes of lavender or mint. They forgot to bring us one of the two dishes we ordered. The staff never came to check on us the 40 min we were there. After tables around us received their dishes (they ordered about 20 min after we did) I inquired about our second dish. The sentiment was “oh, that’s weird” yet the server never checked on the status of our dish. Ten minutes after we asked about our dish (30 min into our experience) we asked for our check. As we were leaving, the server asked me how my drink was “is there even mint in your drink? Was it minty?” To which I said “no, and it wasn’t very good.” She then said “oh okay not sure what happened”. The sever simply blamed the other staff and never acknowledged that she never came by to check on us once. Overall, the food was interesting. But if I’m paying a premium for lackluster drinks and decent tapas, I expect more. I may go back and give it a second try. But if this was the experience when it was “slow”, it would pain me to spend this much on something so sub-par. For reference, we spent about $50 on two cocktails...