Uncle Bubba's Oyster House An Utter Mess

Uncle Bubba's Oyster House
104 Bryan Woods Road
Savannah, GA USA 31410
www.unclebubbas.com

Where is it?

A bit tricky to find. From the entrance, snake around the front enclave (which contains the giftshop) and twist through a long hallway into the main dining room. From there, look to the left, for a large grill station. Just past that, while facing the rear of the place, is a smaller hallway. The bathrooms are in there.

What's it like?

I begin with saying that this review is based on my second visit to this spinoff of the Paula Deen southern cooking empire. (Uncle Bubba is Paula Deen's brother, who just happens to also be a "great southern cook," though many of her recipes are found on the menu.)

The first time I was here, I found the meal decadent but delicious -- great grilled oysters, succulent shrimp and grits, outrageously flavorful crab stew. It was so great that when I decided to return to Savannah for a long weekend, all I could think about was getting back to Bubba's.

Of course, the problem here is that my second trip to Bubba's was one of the worst dining experiences I've had in recent memory. The crab stew (my favorite item last time out) this time contained little crab and came covered with mounds of cheddar cheese, which in turn prohibited me from tasting anything other than cheese. A similar heavy coating of cheese covered the famous Paula Deen crab dip, which also tasted little of crab as a result (and the cheese layer was so thick that it proved difficult to eat with the accompanying tortilla chips -- each time you dipped a chip, the entire cheese layer came with it). Yet even more cheese (low-grade parmesan) topped the grilled oysters, which this time tasted flat, poorly cooked and slimy instead of plump and luscious, like last time. Clearly, the place has decided to follow the TGI Friday's concept that bad food somehow becomes more palatable when covered with ungodly amounts of melted cheese.

Top it off with some truly awful service (we waited 35 minutes just to get the soup, and when we got it, the cheese topping wasn't even melted!), higher-than-before prices, a bar that was out of the delicious Georgia-brewed Sweetwater Ale, and a feeling that I might vomit soon after leaving, and all I can say is that it was truly awful. I've never been in a place where the experience was so top to tails in the span of a single visit (and my first visit came a mere 10 months earlier). I don't think I'll ever return -- it was that disappointing.

What's ironic, of course, is that when we spoke to people in town and told them how awful it was, all we got in return were looks of sheer shock. "Impossible! Not from Paula and Bubba!" they said. Well, it was possible. (Though I will say we were definitely in the minority -- the others in the dining room that night seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. If only we were them...... or that blind.....)

For those who haven't been to Bubba's, here's the lowdown: It's a bustling restaurant set on a riverfront -- and the vibe is that it's a humble riverfront seafood shack. (To be honest, the decor is very reminiscent of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company stores, albeit a little more low rent in design and without the Forrest Gump references). It's a loud place, very boisterous -- and seems designed purposefully so. The dining room comes filled with Formica tables, linoleum floors, a jumping country music soundtrack and wooden walls. The menu is filled primarily with locally caught seafood, like shrimp, crabs, oysters and the lot. As mentioned earlier, nearly all the dishes are prepared in some sort of classic southern manner -- which means it's all pretty much sticks to your ribs fare, and given that it's a Paula Deen place, most of it is either deep fried or topped with mounds of cheese. This is not a place for anyone on a diet or who is lactose intolerant -- or for anyone who actually wants to taste his or her seafood straight-up. (I suppose the grilled wild shrimp we ordered were supposed to do that, but they just missed the mark and felt undercooked both in terms of temperature and flavor. Cheese might have helped here, I guess.)

The bathrooms are equally disappointing, and my first impression of them, after stepping in, was that they were in the process of being scoped out for repairs. An off-putting, chip-filled brown tile covers the lower walls, with non-matching blue drywall covering the upper halves. The sink vanity is colored sharp yellow, with two bare-bones round mirrors nailed into the wall over each sink. Sinks, urinals and toilets are your standard white and show obvious signs of wear and tear, as well as a few visible pipe leaks. Water, trash and towels littered the floor, and a sharp smell of urine stung the air (most likely because someone didn't bother to "hit the mark" when going).

Worse still, there was no soap available to clean your hands with, just a Purell dispenser. So that meant that both employees who were handling raw seafood and customers who were eating this raw seafood had to rely on a few dribbles of Purell to clean their hands with, nothing more -- which, as anyone will tell you, is not acceptable. Nothing gets the stink of peeled shrimp out of your hands better than Purell, right? What are they thinking!?!?!!?

Also worth noting: There was no paper towel holder (to compensate, the management placed a roll of towels on the vanity counter, which was all wet to begin with, so the roll of towels was essentially soaked and useless) and no hand dryer available (a sign taped to it indicated it was broken).

Marks out of 10:

2. Just a horrible overall experience.

Comments to the Management:

Where to begin? First, perhaps the place should be cleaned more than once a day, which is the impression I got from it. We arrived for an early seating and the restrooms were already torn to pieces.

Second, how about getting some matching colors and some working components? A few air fresheners -- and some soap, of course -- would be great as well.

What's all the more disappointing is that this is a nationally recognized restaurant that gets a lot of publicity -- Paula Deen films her Paula's Party show here! You expect it to be in tip top shape and set to impress, but it isn't. It's a mess through and through! And if the bathrooms aren't in full working order, or even somewhat clean, then you have to start wondering what else isn't in tip top shape?

Why is St. John's County Public Highway Rest Area So Much Better than the Pay Rest Areas Found on Florida Turnpike?

St. John's County Rest Area
I-95, FL USA
Mile Market 331, Northbound
www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM2VYA

Where is it?

This somewhat sprawling rest area features a slew of picnic tables and other recreation-based stops (I believe I saw a few charcoal grills?) on property. The main building, which looks like a Spanish villa, contains the bathrooms, as well as some vending machines and such.

Go inside the main villa building and down its main hallway. The bathrooms are on each side of the hall, men's to the right, women's on the left.

What's it like?

These are pretty Teutonic facilities, but they also house a bit of charm -- which is more than can be said of the Ft. Drum and Port St. Lucie rest areas visited on the Florida Turnpike, which were pretty horrific for the most part.

The bathrooms here are shaped as a sort of "U," with the entrance forming the base of the letter. Once inside, visitors can go either to the left or right, which leads into two chambers, each containing a similar setup of urinals, toilet stalls and sinks.

Unlike the Ft. Drum and Port St. Lucie rest areas, the walls here consist of clean white tiles with blue accent tiles (a pleasant touch that reminded me, strangely enough, of the comfortable toilets found at Big Boy Diner in Altamonte Springs, Fla. and the main lobby toilets of Sleuth's Mystery Dinner Theater in Orlando). Floors are covered with a slightly drab brick-colored tile. Fixtures, all standard white porcelain, are clean and in tip top shape. Metallic walls divide the stalls and urinals.

Naturally, what's most surprising about these facilities is how much more comfortable and better-kept they are over the Ft. Drum and Port St. Lucie rest areas, which are on the Florida Turnpike, which I visited earlier this year. Even more surprising is the fact that the St. John's rest area is on a public, free highway, which you don't have to pay a fee to access, unlike the Turnpike stops, which requirement payment for access.

Common sense leads me to believe that the facilities you pay for should be more luxurious and the free ones more shabby, but that's not the case here. I guess I just don't understand the way the American tax dollar gets spent, and I certainly don't think a blog on toilets should really be the place to start hypothesizing.

Regardless, I can say that after visiting these facilities, I only felt more disappointment for the Ft. Drum and Port St. Lucie rest areas -- especially considering that this is an election year.

Marks out of 10:

7. Not bad at all -- and certainly much better than the Ft. Drum and Port St. Lucie rest areas.

Comments to the Management:

Perhaps you should talk to the Turnpike crew and see if you can suggest some strategies to help improve the quality of their facilities. They sure need it and it sure looks like you've got the problem solved here.

Sleuth's Main Lobby Toilets Definitely a Step Up from Theater Facilities

Sleuths Mystery Dinner Show
8267 International Drive
Orlando, FL USA 32819
www.sleuths.com

Where is it?

These toilets are located in the gift shop area of this dinner theater attraction. To get to them, enter the gift shop/bar area and mosey your way to the back of the place. Follow the bar, keeping it on your left, until you see a hallway in the back baring signs for the bathrooms.

Note: You'll find many silly gifts and gag items along the way. Try not to get distracted, especially if you're in dire need to go. Otherwise, the joke will be on you (get it?).

What's it like?

Unlike the toilets in the actual dinner theaters here, which are small and often water-soaked (especially by the end of a performance), these facilities are spacious, clean and comfortable -- and they proved reminiscent of the facilities I experienced at the Big Boy diner in Altamonte Springs, albeit this one has black tile highlights and that one has red. Go figure.

Visitors here can expect to find white tile on the floor and walls (the latter features those black highlights), a black marble counter top with metallic sink and glossy mirrored vanity, white urinals and toilets and black stalls. Not bad at all -- and as I said, a complete 180-degree turn from what you'll find inside the actual dinner theater toilets, which (as I said already) aren't all that nice to begin with. (You'd expect the opposite, since the dinner theater units get more traffic, but that isn't the case.) And though the environment is a bit sterile and cold, it's still a welcome change from what you'll find in those theater rooms. Ick.

Best still: My visit occurred after the show, so it was private, clean and comfortable (it was nearly midnight, so I imagine the cleaning crew had already made a pass). Only my friend Kip McGuire, who attended the show with me (along with some of our other friends -- it was a mutual friend's birthday party) barged in while I was there -- which ultimately made for an amusing, somewhat foul-mouthed photo opp. Ha ha ha!

Marks out of 10:

8. Should be a 7, but it was such a refreshing and welcome change of pace from the toilets in the dining room theater that I had to increase the score a little.

Comments to the Management:

Thank you for allowing me to step into a clean bathroom after such a dreary show and meal...... It was the best part of the evening, actually.

Bring a Flashlight to Ravenous Pig's Dimly Lit Toilets -- You'll Need It

1234 N. Orange Avenue
Winter Park, FL USA 32789
(407) 628-2333
www.theravenouspig.com

Where is it?

The restaurant is split into three distinct parts: A bar or pub area, a modernly dressed main dining hall and a smaller, brick-lined dining room that opens partially to the kitchen's finish line.

The bathrooms here are found in the back of the second section -- the main dining hall. To get there from the entrance, head into that second chamber (so to speak), turn left and head to the very back of the restaurant. You'll find a small enclave there on your left -- the toilets are there.

What's it like?

This "American gastropub" is one of Orlando's newer, and trendier, eateries. Unfortunately, sometimes its ambitions get in the way of its results.

The decor here supports its ambitious sensibilities, offering something that is familiar, swanky and exotic. You'll find bronze-tiled ceilings, translucent sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling and curved modernist furniture alongside more down-to-earth pub tables and a heavy wood bar serving plenty of upscale beers and wines.

Given that, it's not surprising to learn that the menu aims to please two palettes as well: Half of the offerings here are pub fair prepared with gourmet twists (mussels with truffle fries, the underwhelming lobster tacos, house-made soft pretzels), while the other half (the regular dining menu) boasts several high-end creations, many of them seasonal in origin (an impressive steak frites -- again with truffle fries -- a not-so-impressive olive-crusted lamb tenderloin). When the food succeeds, it does so glowingly (like the aforementioned steak or the sublime quail and raisin appetizer special I had on my visit).

But at the same time, more experimental dishes (like the lamb, or the suckling pig over sweetened collards) tend to get lost in the ambitious shuffle, mostly because they seem to forget what they are about. The lamb, for example, should have had the flavor of lamb at its center, but instead the dish seemed to be trying hard to mask that. The same could be said for the pig, which started as a unique diversion to a traditional dish, but as the meal continued I began to miss those traditional flavors and wished they would return, even if only for a moment.

Having said that, I don't mean to say that the quality of the food is poor. It's not. The chefs are talented and creative, that's for sure. But their dishes, at times, make you long for something less ambitious and trendy. Perhaps that's why the steak frites was so delicious -- it was simplistic compared to the other dishes we tried, and that in turn seemed like a revelation.

Bathroom-wise, it's a similar story. The toilets here aim to be trendy and hip but forget some of the of the basics. First of all, let me say that they are very dimly lit, so much so that it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust.

These are "one baggers," narrow and a bit tight. The walls are painted green (I think -- it was pretty dark in there), the floors covered in dark tile. A strip of wooden molding rounds the middle of the wall as an accent. The toilet, a standard white porcelain model, sits cozily in a frame concocted out of that molding and a shelf overhead. The glass sink is one of those flashier wash-basin-look-alike models we're everywhere these days (most notably, of late, at Mr. K's Chinese Cuisine); it's fitted into a glass vanity counter sort of thing, with metal spigot/faucet overhead. A wood-framed mirror hangs overhead.

The toilets were somewhat clean but could have been more spruced up. The dim lighting made it seemed dingier than it probably was. I found mis-thrown garbage and water on the floor (which wasn't easy, considering how dark it was inside there), and I also noticed that the drain piece in the sink was cracked, which of course made me wonder what else might be broken or nearing a state of disrepair here (perhaps it's dark there for a reason?).

Also worth noting: For decoration, the bathroom had a framed picture of a church cemetery on the wall, which added an air of quirky creepiness to the proceedings. Not sure why they chose that for art -- perhaps it's best not to ask. Needless to say, the dim lighting and cemetery imagery made me want to hurry up and get out of there as quickly as I could.

Marks out of 10:

6. Not a bad bathroom, but for some reason I was expecting more (especially considering the ambitiousness of the place). The dim lighting didn't help the score -- in fact, it only made me wonder what was wrong there.

Marks out of 10:

Increasing the lighting might be a good step. Not extensively, but at least enough so I don't feel like I'm in a closet. Next, consider replacing the items that are wearing down or broken. Also, like your menu, don't forget the basics -- style doesn't always win over substance.

Bathrooms at Macy's Mall of Millenia Location Could Use Some Soul

Macy's The Mall at Millenia
4298 Millenia Blvd.
Orlando, FL USA 32839
www.macys.com

Where is it?

Head to the second floor of the department store and then mosey towards the mall entrance found there. Once you're near the entrance, look for the signs above you, directing you to the various store departments. Use those signs to find the toilets, or look for the hallway leading to them a few merchandise sections to the left of that mall entrance (when facing into the mall, that is).

What's it like?

Being that this is the Mall of Millenia, Orlando's swankiest mall at the moment, I expected great things (and yes, I know that's Kohl's slogan, but still....) from these toilets. After all, the food quart toilets provided one of the most luxurious toilet experiences of my life (and the Pottery Barn Kids store facilities here provided me with one of my most shameful). And since Macy's is one of the swankiest department stores around, I assumed these toilets would achieve similar quality in terms of experience.

That wasn't the case. Not that these were bad -- they weren't, they were actually very nice, but they weren't mind-blowingly impressive, like those food quart toilets. The facilities here are large, accommodating about 15 people at a time. But there's nothing flashy or impressive about the offerings, which I found somewhat disappointing and soulless.

White tile covers the floor and walls. Beige stalls separate the urinals and commodes, which are just your standard white varieties. There are two sink/vanity areas here, one for standard hand washing and one with a baby-changing station built into the counter top. Each has a blue counter top that is so out of place color-wise (everything else is drab beige or white) that you feel a little afraid of it.

Cleanliness wise, it's decent and well-kept, though the tile and utilities are starting to show a little wear and tear. Also, the lighting is a bit too reliant on fluorescent bulbs, making the environment at times seem a bit too much like a prison cell and sterile. Also, because of the tiled walls, sounds echo tremendously here, which can be embarrassing for anyone wishing to make a longer visit in peace.

Like those food quart toilets, it houses a small sitting area outside the bathrooms. Unfortunatley, this one doesn't have plush couches or stylish upholstery. Instead, you'll find a drab, well-worn vinyl covered easy chair that looks like it's been sitting there since the late 1970s.

Marks out of 10:

7. Perfectly serviceable, but don't expect much else from it.
Marks out of 10:

Some nifty, tech-infused add-ons might be good to include, as would some decoration -- anything, really to give the place a sense of soul -- and a comfortable waiting area chair that looks like it was made in this century.