The Dish - A critic's review of Brophy Bros

What a life my cousin has... he's married to a wonderful woman, is a ski & snowboard instructor during the winter in Snow Valley and operates the Arrowhead Queen tour boat on Lake Arrowhead in the summer. Yes, I'm jealous.

So he has a couple of days off and he drives down the mountain with his woman to surf in Ventura. Sets up camp at the Crowne Plaza and puts on the dusty wet suit for some surfing.

Figures he'll ask a local where/when to surf - and you do you think he bumps into? Of all people in Ventura, he sees some surfin' looking dude to ask some questions and it's Chipper Bro - surfing extraordinaire - and founder of the Aloha Beach Festival in Ventura to whom Ventura Night Out is a proud sponsor.

After an afternoon of surfing and fun, he catches up with me and the Mrs at one of our favorite watering holes for happy hour (shhh, don't tell anyone - it's our little secret) - Brophy Bros in Ventura at the Harbor. We had so much fun catching up with each other and swapping stories and jokes. We sat at the bar and fed our faces with food and drinks. Even our 8 year old came along hanging out like a big boy, watching the ball games on TV and chugging a few Shirley Temples (I mean James Bonds, sorry dude).

If you haven't been to Brophy Bros for happy hour, you've been missing out on a bunch. They rock and let me tell you why!

This is what we ate:

- Beer Boiled Shrimp
- Garlic Baked Shrimp - 3 orders
- Oysters Rockefeller
- Ceviche
- Fried Calamari
- Fish N Chips
- Cheeseburger/Fries for the Big Guy

This is what we drank: (won't tell you how many)
- Bloody Mary's
- Margaritas
- Shirley Temples (I mean James Bonds)

The food and drink are superb. Now hear me out for a moment... I can be super critical and obnoxious when it comes to a review. Like I said... the drinks are outstanding. Did I mention the drinks were very good? Oh, I just did. When you order a Bloody Mary at most other establishments, they lack a few needed ingredients to make it just right or they'll add sea salt to the rim of the glass similar to a margarita. That just makes it ordinary.

But at Brophy Bros they rim the glass with celery salt. Wow! You just want to lick the rim of your high-ball. Not a bad concept. They should change the name of the drink to "Rim Lickin' Bloody Mary". If only they would add an extra dash of Worcestershire sauce to give it that extra pop.

As for the food - the food is actually very, very good and the portions are extremely fair too. The Mrs, who does not care for fried food very much, enjoyed the calamari and the fish n chips. Not too greasy and tasted very yummy. Happy hour prices are extremely happy - less than $6 per dish for everything we ate. Drinks were less than $4 each. Danny the bartender was fantastic. We missed Admiral James but will catch him another time.

Did we eat too much? We could have eaten more - but the folks next to us would have taken pics and posted them on Facebook and entered us in the VC Fair "You're as Big as an Ox Eating Contest". So we left the place and headed to Pirates in Oxnard for a some after-dinner drinks (dessert for the Big Guy) and conversation with owner Jeff. Oh what a night.

Brophy Bros is located at 1559 Spinnaker Drive in the Ventura Harbor. Pirates Restaurant is located at 450 S. Victoria Av in Oxnard.

The Dish - A critic's review of Joe's Crab Shack

Jun 2010 - Visited Joe's Crab Shack after a very long week. Checked into the Pierpont for a couple of days and opted to get a few cocktails and some dinner. We were told our wait would be 5-10 minutes and waited patiently. A young couple walked in and said hello to the hostess. They all seemed to know each other.

Within minutes, they were seated and we were still waiting in the lobby area. Nothing like picking favorites.

I immediately got up and located the General Manager (Darwin was his name) and explained my disappointment. He seemed not to really care as we were being seated next. Not once did anyone from Joe's Crab Shack ever apologize.

Once seated, we dropped $75 and Darwin never stepped in with any customer service. He simply ignored us entirely. Not a real "feel good" manager by any means. All he had to do was offer his apologies and this review would have never been written.

As for the food and drinks - we drank some Bloody Mary's and split a steam pot of crabs, shrimp, sausage, corn and potatoes. End Result: The food and drinks were very good, however, the service was not acceptable.