Jaws Eats Claws

But enough with these mild disappointments. We had plenty to celebrate. The great stroke with the blackened wahoo club sandwich ($11) was pairing a fine fillet with that Nueske's bacon and serving it on thick slices of whole grain bread. Yummers. An informal survey I read recently divulged that if forced to become fundamentalist Muslims, the thing Americans would miss most is bacon. It beat out women's rights. Hilarious. BR understands that if you wrap a strip of cured pig around anything, they will eat.

We tried two meals off the nightly specials board: Jamaican pepper shrimp ($19), sautéed in a bath of creamy, sweet-hot curry and paired with explosively seasoned wasabi mashed potatoes, a near-perfect combo. They ought to put this dish on the permanent menu. I was less entranced by the apricot-rum scallops ($22) because I find scallops plenty sweet on their own without a fruity sauce, which made the dish cloying — although my dinner partner scarfed it up with muffled expressions of ecstasy.

My impression over several visits is that the simpler dishes at BR — poor boys and burgers, steamed clams and fried green tomatoes, along with some of the specials — generally work a lot better than the overly contrived entrées. I mean, look at the list of ingredients on the grouper-lobster platter ($28): pineapple, pine nuts, avocado, grilled Bermuda onion, red bean timbale, collards, Meyer lemon. Sounds complicated, but does it taste good? The heart's willing, but the mind rebels.

Warm banana bread for dessert and an espresso ice cream sandwich (each $7) play the right notes of nostalgia and downhomeness. But good luck breaking the cookie on that ice cream sandwich without a pickax.

Never let it be said that Blacktip Reef is skimming along the safe channels. I like the place quite a lot, as much for its good-natured warmth as its food. In the long run, the kitchen may have to scale back its ambitions. I can't imagine what it must be like to try to keep so many ingredients in stock: radish, papaya, coconut, plantains, arugula, fennel, mango, oranges, asparagus, shiso, leeks, bunches of different fish and shellfish... for a place this size, it's crazy. My hunch is that like his pet shark, Greg McMenaman is just relentlessly hungry. He wants to eat everything. And he thinks his customers do too.