Nile Seafood Market and Restaurant
Hmmmm, such an interesting place that I’m not even sure how to describe it. We were a bit uncomfortable when we first walked in since there was literally nobody else in the place except Hanni, the owner/manager. When you first walk in, to your left is a very long seafood counter with tons of fresh salmon, shrimp (and several other WHOLE fish that I couldn’t identify). There were quite a few tables, high-tops and booths filling up the remainder of the space. As I said – a very interesting place, but it appeared to be clean and well-organized. The menu isn’t huge, but pretty well-rounded and everything is FRESH – seriously. Mr. Z ordered the jumbo shrimp dinner and Hanni actually had him come up to the seafood counter and choose the shrimp he wanted. When the menu says ‘jumbo’ it really does mean jumbo – like HUGE! Unfortunately, like we found with the shrimp in my salad and the calamari (read on) it just wasn’t cooked long enough and sadly, tended to be on the chewy side. Otherwise, it would have been excellent. His dinner came with French fries or rice, so he reluctantly chose the fries thinking they were going to be frozen and icky! To our surprise, they were fresh cut and really, really good!
I wasn’t sure about some of the menu choices, so I thought I’d play it sort of safe (ha!). I ordered what I THOUGHT was the shrimp and crab salad (more on that to follow), along with the fried calamari. I specifically asked him when I ordered if the calamari were tender or had a ‘rubbery’ quality to it. He assured me it was ‘very fresh and good’. To my disappointment, though it looked excellent (and a huge portion) I honestly couldn’t chew it at all and since I was hungry and it looked so good, I really tried. I dug around in the dish thinking I’d find a few pieces that were edible, but they were all the same. I honestly think it was seriously under-cooked (or just not prepared correctly). Anywhere else, I might have sent it back, but he was so nice and seemed to take such pride in everything, I felt like I would have deeply offended him had I done so, so I just left it. He did bring me multiple sauces, some tahini and hummus (which was excellent) but which would have been more fun if I’d had something to dip IN them! My salad was a VERY large bowl of baby arugula, large slices of onion, several quartered tomatoes and at least one pound of small to medium cooked shrimp, topped with a dressing that I’m guessing was the ‘special Nile Seafood dressing’, however just like Mr. Z’s jumbo shrimp and my calamari, the shrimp wasn’t cooked enough and was very chewy, tough and hard to eat. It was disappointing since this was, after all, a SEAFOOD market and restaurant. Again, we COULD have said something, but didn’t want to offend.
Overall, we sincerely hope that this business thrives since there aren’t an abundance of seafood “markets” around.
Nile Seafood Market and Restaurant is located at:
6863 W. 130th Street
Parma Heights, OH
(440) 253-8333
https://www.zmenu.com/nile-seafood-market-and-restaurant-parma-heights-online-menu/