Happy Hour at Ocean Prime Naples

Ocean Prime is a restaurant in The Inn on Fifth in Naples, FL. It was once part of The Inn on Fifth as Avenue Five, but was leased out to an independent restaurateur. Ocean Prime has about 14 locations nationwide, and looks to be an upscale dining destination somewhat like Darden’s restaurant brand, Capital Grille.

Aesthetically, the restaurant is beautiful and retains the charm of the former Avenue Five. After a perusal of their menu, their happy hour offerings looked intriguing. My dining companions and I decided to take a peek.

Please keep in mind for happy hour, all their bar menu items are fair game and $5.00 off from their normal price. There are also reduced prices on select drinks along with beer and wines. Happy hour is served in the bar area, either at the bar or at the tables and booths adjacent to it.

Initially, we were brought a bread basket. The breads were very good, with both cracked wheat sourdough and pretzel bread. Popcorn was next, and was seasoned with truffle oil.  Although tasty, the vast majority of all truffle oil is synthetic. That being said, it kind of bursts your bubble. Curried popcorn may have been better.

The first item ordered was the lamb lollipops. These were delicious, easily the best of what was ordered. These were served with a soy butter sauce, and a slaw made from cilantro, bean sprouts, carrots, sweet red pepper, carrots and snap peas and seasoned with a wasabi mayonnaise dressing. Highly recommended.

The tuna roll was next, with avocado and cucumber inside, and finely chopped spicy tuna on top garnished with fish roe seasoned with wasabi. A nice plating of eel sauce and spicy mayo finished the dish. I thought the roll was OK, my dining companion didn’t really like it. That’s alright, more for me!

We finished up with the fish tacos. The tacos were filled with a jalapeno slaw similar to the one described above, and breaded fish. Unfortunately, the breading on the fish was so heavily salted both my dining companion and I thought there may have been an accident in the kitchen. We ordered a replacement but to no avail. We both agreed next time we would try something else.

My other dining companions ordered the crab cake sliders. Too often, crab cakes ordered out are long on the cake and short on the crab. Not at Ocean Prime. The crab cakes were made as they should be with mostly lump crab meat and very little binder/filler. My dining companions gave these two thumbs up,  and the sliders were made all that much better with Cheddar cheese, tomato and a jalapeno corn tartar sauce.

The happy hour at Ocean Prime is not bad; the food served in one of Naples’ most aesthetically pleasing restaurant spaces. Although pricing here is at the high end of the spectrum for Naples’ restaurants, the happy hour discount does give some relief from this. Should you want to try the happy hour here, I would suggest getting here fairly early, as it does tend to be crowded, especially in the winter months.

It’s a wrap for another post on Forks.