Tapas-Style Tasting Menu

Thai Shrimp Salad

The Tasting Menu has returned to Madfish Grill!

Signature Crab Cakes

You see, last summer we rolled out this fantastic little menu full of fantastic little dishes. We called it the Tasting Menu. It was wildly popular. We took it away during season, mostly because our kitchen is not really set up for tapas service, especially when the dining room is super-busy and jam-packed with a wait list an hour long. But, during the summer, when it isn't all that busy, this tapas thing was a lot fun... both for the customers and the staff.

So, we decided to bring it back.

Soft Shell Crab

Let me explain what the Tasting Menu is all about...
There are about 30 items on this little menu, from salads and seafood to steak and desserts. You can purchase 1 or 2 of these items for $7.33 each. OR, if you purchase 3 or more, they are $6.33 each. To make things a little more interesting, we added some cocktails and premium glasses of wine to the list... if you purchase 3 food items, these drinks are only $6.33 as well! This means you can have a 3 course meal, with a Thai Shrimp Salad, Crab Cakes, Creme Brulee AND a glass of Mark West Pinot Noir for just $25. That's a pretty good deal.

Potato Crusted Cod

We realized that in the summer, people don't want to eat quite so heavily. It is hot and humid, and a big steak or Fettuccine Alfredo or a lot of other comfort foods can make you, well, uncomfortable. The Tasting Menu is fun way to eat a little lighter.

Saucy Shrimp Scampi

The original idea of the Tasting Menu came from Tapas (I wrote about the history of Tapas here last week). Tapas is a Spanish cuisine, and in the United States it as seen as a social way of dining. We encourage our customers to order several Tasting plates for the table to pass and share. This gives everybody a unique taste of several different dishes. Of course, we understand if you want to keep all of your delicious small plates to yourself!

Big Bang Lobster Bites

To check out the entire Tasting Menu, click here!

A Brief History of Tapas

Mmmmm. Tapas.

I love Tapas... it is such a fun, social way to eat really great food.

We at Madfish are rolling out our new Tapas-style Tasting Menu this week, and I thought it would be fun to delve into the history of Tapas.

Tapas are appetizer-like dishes that originated in Spain. They can be snacks, small plates, finger food... and they can be made of just about anything. In Spain, just about every bar carries tapas. Some serve one complimentary with each drink, and some offer an array for purchase. Tapas are said to keep the Spanish fueled when going from bar to bar before lunch and especially before their late dinner.

Tapas, as a cuisine, is seen as social. Parties order numerous plates for the whole table to share. Instead of being focused on only the meal in front of you, tapas allows you to openly converse while sharing something delicious with friends.

Tapa means 'cover' in Spanish, and it is said that the original tapas were slices of bread or meat placed as a cover on top of a drink (wine or sherry) in order to protect it from fruit flies. An extension of this idea is that people often stand at Spanish bars, and they needed somewhere to place their plates while eating their tapa. They placed their small plates on top of their drinks, creating a lid, or cover.

A more folkloric explanation of tapas involves King Alfonso X (some sources cite King Alfonso XII of Castile.) It is said that he ordered a cup of sherry at a popular inn on a windy day in the port city of Cádiz. His waiter covered the cup with a slice of cured ham to protect the sherry from the beach sand, and from then on King Alfonso ordered his sherry 'with the cover.'

In recent years, tapas has become popular cuisine all over the world. Tapas restaurants and bars in the United States often follow the traditional Spanish influence, but there are many that create their own tapas style. In our own Sarasota, Ceviche is a popular traditional Spanish tapas bar, and is located in a beautiful building downtown. In Savannah, GA there is a tapas bar called Jazz'd which hosts a more eclectic menu and features many southern specialties. If you are ever in Savannah, please check it out... the food and the atmosphere are both amazing!


As I mentioned earlier in this post, Madfish's new Tasting Menu is a tapas-style small plate menu. We first introduced this menu last summer and, due to its popularity, decided to reincarnate it this summer. The appetizer-sized plates may be purchase individually for $7.33 each, or 3 plates for $18.99. I will post pictures and a more extensive explanation of this new menu soon!

Until next time... Ciao!

Cupcakes for the Cure

Cancer. I don't know anyone who hasn't been affected by some form of cancer. I have lost 1 grandfather to lung cancer already, and am very close to losing the other. My best friend's father died from liver cancer, and one of my closest friends was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 22. I have 3 close friends who have lost their mothers to breast cancer. And that is just how this awful disease has affected me... I am just one person. There are no six degrees of separation when it comes to cancer... it touches everyone.

Madfish has decided to do our part in battling cancer. We have a regular customer and dear friend who is walking in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure in Atlanta in October. She is walking as a part of Team Treasure Chest, which is a group of 3 ladies in Sarasota and a few others in Georgia. They need to raise $2300 a piece in order to participate in the walk, and we really want to help them achieve that goal.

The first step in our fundraising efforts is cupcakes. Yummy, yummy ice cream cupcakes from Cold Stone Creamery. We have paired up with the Cold Stone on S. Tamiami, owned by Henry & Michelle Mathison, to bring you these scrumptious goodies. They come in 3 flavors and are sold individually for $2.79 or in packs of 6 for $12.99. Proceeds from the sale of the cupcakes will go to the walkers for the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure.

We started selling cupcakes on Monday, June 22 and as of Wednesday, July 2 (just a week & a half!) we have sold 187 cupcakes. That's a lot of goodness for a good cause! We are so excited that our staff is so on board with this cause... they are doing a fantastic job of filling in customers on our humble effort to raise money for something so important to so many people.

The second step in our fundraising efforts has to do with Cupcake Vineyards. We just began to carry their Sauvignon Blanc and their Chardonnay, both of which are refreshing and lovely wines. Needless to say, we were all impressed when we tasted them for the first time. Proceeds from the sales of both Cupcake wines will also be donated to Susan G Komen for the Cure.

The third and final part of our fundraising efforts for Susan G Komen is the Pink Menu. During the month of August, we will have a menu featuring the ice cream cupcakes, the Cupcake wines, and a few "Pink Drinks" from our bar... the proceeds from which will of course go to Komen! I will blog more about this in the month to come as details become more solidified. Team Treasure Chest will also have a big banner up in the restaurant which you can sign for a dollar. They will carry this banner with them to Atlanta!

We wish all of you out there who have been affected by cancer, whether it be breast cancer or some other form of the disease, our heartfelt condolences and our best wishes for the future. Please come in and help support an honorable cause and a remarkable foundation, which will no doubt one day find a cure for the disease that has touched all of our hearts.

How to Eat a Whole Maine Lobster

As many of you are already aware, Madfish Grill holds a Lobster Bake every Wednesday night during the summer. We have been doing this for years now, and it is always anxiously awaited by our regular customers. Our lobster bake is $21.99 and starts out with a cup of Kickin' Seafood & Corn Chowder, followed by a bowl full of littleneck clams, red potatoes, corn on the cob and a whole 1 1/4 pound Maine lobster. It's a lot of grub for just over twenty bucks.

While many of our guests already know how to eat their lobster, we find that there are a lot of people who have never undertaken this task before. I am here to teach you the proper way to dissect your lobster... not that tearing apart a sea creature to find every scrumptious little piece of meat could ever really be proper.

Before we dive into the dissection, I want to show you how we get your meal ready...

We start with a live 1 1/4 pound Maine Lobster. This particular little guy was a very angry lobster. I don't think he wanted to be the subject of our lesson. We steam the lobsters to order for a few minutes... till they are good & red.

We also steam the clams, and boil the corn & potatoes with some good fresh herbs.

Now, my friends, the lesson begins. I apologize in advance for some blurry pictures... Ben's gloved hands move fast, kind of like he knows what he's doing. For today's class, you will need a cooked lobster, crackers, scissors and a cocktail fork.

The first thing you want to do is take the tail off. Just grab a hold of it, move it back and forth a bit, and twist it off. Don't worry about the slimy green stuff in the body... it is tomally - the lobster's liver. Some consider this a delicacy, but we don't recommend eating it. We recommend ignoring it and continuing on...

Next you want to take the claws off. Again, grab hold and twist. This will leave you with the tail, 2 claws, and the head. You can twist off the 8 little legs at this point - I am not going to show you, but the best way to get at the sweet, tender meat inside is to bite down on the legs and suck the meat out.

Okay, on to the meat. To get to the tail meat, which many consider the best part of the lobster, hold the tail in the palm of your hand. and crush it. You want to hear a good crack.

Grab the shell on each side, flip it open, and pull the tail meat out in one big piece.

Time for the claws - take your crackers and crack the claw at the base of the small pincer.

Wiggle it around a little to separate the back end of the claw from the meat. Then, wiggle the pincers around a bit and pull out the rest of the meat.

If you are as skilled as our Ben, you can get every morsel of claw meat out in one piece. If you are not as skilled as Ben (like, say, if you are me), you might get to practice using your crackers a little more and you might have to use your cocktail fork to dig out the rest of the claw meat.

The knuckles of the lobster are quick and easy. Just use your crackers at each joint and on the shell in the middle of each joint. You might have to break out the scissors and cut through some of the shell in order to get the meat from each knuckle out in one piece.

All of that twisting, cracking and digging for meat and here is what you end up with! The best part about eating whole lobster is that you get to enjoy it as you go! If you want to come try out your lobster skills, we have live Maine lobster every Wednesday night!

Bete Noir - Classic Flourless Chocolate Cake

Mmmm. Flourless cake... in all of its fudgy goodness. There are many many flourless chocolate cakes out there, most of them tasty in their own right. Our version is called the Bete Noir. It is scrumptious and it is probably our most popular dessert. I am here to teach you how to make it.

Here's what you need:
36 oz unsweetened baker's chocolate (we use dark chocolate)
1.5 cups water
1.5 pounds butter
4 cups granulated sugar
15 egg yolks

Here's how you put it together:


Place chocolate and butter in a large mixing bowl.



Bring the water and 3 cups of the sugar to a boil for one minute. If your mixing bowl is metal, you can place it right on top of the heating simple syrup to begin the melting process. If your mixing bowl is plastic, that is okay... it will just take longer to melt in the next step.

Slowly pour the simple syrup mixture into the mixing bowl and stir until the chocolate and butter are completely melted.



Mix the 15 eggs yolks with the remaining cup of sugar.

Fold the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture until smooth and creamy.

Bake in a water bath at 375 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, or until set. The deeper your water bath, the longer it will take to bake.

After baking, turn upside down on a cutting board and knock the whole thing out of the pan. This works really well if you have used parchment paper. Use a hot, clean knife to cut.


We serve our Bete Noir with raspberry & white chocolate sauces. Pretty!