Wine Dine and Play: Sea Sea Riders

Ron’s Favorite

Dunedin, Florida

Dined in July 2016

By Sean Overpeck (CFE)

My wife’s father had just passed away, and the family and friends got together at Ron’s favorite restaurant from when he used to live near Dunedin called Sea Sea Riders. A room was reserved and we all had a good lunch exchanging conversation and memories. A nice American style menu with fresh seafood, and good service, made it a nice experience for everyone.

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Restaurant Owners:

Sylvia and Artie Tzekas

From the Sea Sea Riders home page:

Owned by Sylvia and Artie Tzekas, Sea Sea Riders restaurant is pleased to offer the best steak and seafood in the Tampa Bay Area. Whether you need a quick lunch or dinner with friends and loved ones, we offer you award winning, reasonably-priced cuisine and different specials everyday. For special occasions, we also offer wedding receptions, rehearsal dinners and banquet rooms. Family owned and operated for more than 20 years, we take pride in making everything fresh in house. Our restaurant also provides an Old-Florida ambiance inside of a restored 1903 waterfront home with veranda dining to provide a unique and enjoyable dining experience.

Main review:

There were about twenty of us in the party, my wife and I, her sister and husband, friends of her father, some of her friends, and my father and stepmother. The city of Dunedin gets its name from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The town is situated just north of Clearwater, and south of Palm Harbor, and features two of the top twenty restaurants in the Tampa-St Petersburg area, so these folks do like to eat. Sea Sea Riders wasn’t on that list but still it was a nice place. Their menu was as follows:

Start
Greens
Sandwiches
Main
Side
Sweet

Their bar offers a wide variety of local, and out of town beers, over thirty in all, plus a decent though mainstream style wine selection, and house crafted cocktails. Between our group of folks we tried a good sampling from the menu with my wife trying their Tasso macaroni and cheese ($9) from the start menu. The ham was smoked, tossed in the macaroni with white cheddar and topped with a cornbread crumble.

She also enjoyed the roots salad ($9), served with mixed greens tossed in a smoked jalapeño ranch dressing, roasted red beets, charred carrots, radish, and spiced peanuts.

My stepmother had the Florida grouper sandwich (MP), which you could get beer battered, grilled, or blackened. She mentioned that it was okay, but not the best she had eaten.

My father went more traditional form the sandwich menu and had their burger ($9), topped with a sweet caramelized onion jam.

Finally I had the soft shell crab sandwich ($12), which I had first tried about seven years earlier for the first time when I visited my daughter in Charleston, South Carolina. I couldn’t believe just how good the dish was, so when I saw it on this menu I had to give it a try. It was dusted in cornmeal, served with a fried green tomato, arugula lettuce, and a pickled red onion chow chow.

The other folks had a variety of items from the menu, some the same as us, and a few other things. This was a nice place, and I’d like to return one day.

Dessert:

Their sweets menu has key lime pie, flourless chocolate torte, and a carrot cake, however I did order something that was not on the menu, it must have been a special, and honestly I don’t remember the name. It is pictured below, and was very rich and delicious.

So, with the meal and interview complete, and our culinary appetites fulfilled, lets see how Sea Sea Riders rates overall shall we. Here is how my rating system works….

5 stars	is Extraordinary
4 Stars	is Outstanding
3 Stars	Exceeded Expectations
2 Stars	is Above the Average
1 Star	is an Average Dining Experience
No Star Rating	The Restaurant is Basic, Poor, or Appalling

Rating Breakdown And Analysis:

On Wine, Dine, and Play, I have an overall star rating scale of six levels with the lowest being a poor or appalling experience (zero stars), up to an extraordinary experience (five stars). This rating scale is formulated by braking down individual experiences such as (1) wine selection, (2) plate presentation, (3) ambiance, (4) “wow” factor, (5) customer service, plus (6) food quality and combines them on a separate scale of zero to ten, with ten being the best. In the next paragraph, I brake down how and why I come to the conclusion of the rating numbers listed in the overall review chart below.

The overall star rating from Wine, Dine, and Play that I give to Sea Sea Riders is a two, meaning that they stand above the average dining experience of other restaurants, and met my expectations. I also believe that with the 20+ years of dining across the world, I set my expectations to a higher standard compared to some other reviewers out there. So to receive more than 2 stars from me says a lot about your establishment and how you “wowed” me. I came to this conclusion based on all the other factors listed above and how they rated. I came to this conclusion based on all the other factors listed above and how they rated.

Overall Star rating by Wine, Dine, & Play:	2 of 5 Above Avergae
Ambiance:	5 of 10
Quality of the Food:	6 of 10
Plate Presentation:	5 of 10
Customer Service:	5 of 10
Wow Factor:	2 of 10
Wine Selection: *(See the full list below)*	4 of 10

Review basics:

Wine selections by region:	4 of 10 Old world: France: Loire: (Sancerre, & Saumur, Vouvray, & Chinon). Italy: Toscana Germany: Mosel New World: Australia: Barossa Valley California: Sonoma, Napa, Carneros, Paso Robles,o, Russian River Valley, & Monterey Washington State: Columbia Valle
Corkage fee’s:	The Restaurant does not list any corkage fee’s however, most American restaurants charge $25.00 per bottle
Restaurant style:	Casual
Reservations:	Not Required Walk-Ins: Accepted, but not guaranteed
Child policy:	The Restaurants reviewed on this site may have a child’s menu or cater to them; however for full enjoyment of food and wine, it is recommended for children not to be in attendance, unless they have been trained in proper etiquette. Hire a Babysitter!
Dress code:	Casual
Cuisine style:	Contemporary, Seafood, American, Southern, & Vegetarian
Experiences:	Good for special occasions, Rustic, Scenic views, Hole-in-the-wall, Tourist grabber, and a Neighborhood gem.
Payments:	Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express
Parking:	Public lot
Wifi	The restaurants reviewed on this site may have Wi-Fi, but do not require you to go online, because the excitement of the food and wine alone will keep you too entertained instead of checking your social media and emails.
Noise level:	Low
Smoking:	Nonsmoking restaurant

Sea Sea Riders Restaurant:

221 Main St

Dunedin, Florida 34698

Contact Information:

Maître d or host:	+1 727 734-1445
Restaurant website:	Sea Sea Riders Restaurant
Serving hours: Eastern Standard Time (GMT - 5:00)	Sun-Thur 11:30 am - 9:00 pm Fri-Sat 11:30 am - 10:00 pm
Email or webpage contact:	Contact the restaurant
Social Media & Accolades:	Facebook link
Social Media & Accolades:	Instagram

****

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Leopard Hills Lodge Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa	La TABLE de Joël Robuchon Paris, France
Quay Sydney, Australia	Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud Dublin, Ireland
At.mosphere Dubai, UAE	The Tasting room at Le Quartier Français Franschhoek, South Africa
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Mr. Todiwala’s Kitchen London, United Kingdom	Zuma Dubai, UAE
McCrady’s Charleston, South Carolina, USA	Cook'n' With Gas Bistro Christchurch, New Zealand
Aubergine Cape Town, South Africa	Reflets par Pierre Gagnaire Festival City, Dubai, UAE
Rioja Denver, Colorado, USA	Commanders Palace New Orlean’s, Louisiana, USA
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Constantia Uitsig La Colombe Constantia, Cape Town, South Africa	Restaurant Le Gabriel Bordeaux, France

So many great wines in this world, here are a few of my favorite tastings:

Meerlust Wine Estate Rubicon Stellenbosch, South Africa	Hoopes Vineyard Napa, California, USA
Jonata Winery Santa Barbara, California, USA	Yarra Yering Yarra Valley, Australia
Penner Ash Wine Cellars Willamette, Oregon	La Motte Franschhoek, South Africa
Biltmore Estate Winery Asheville, North Carolina, USA	Bergström Wines Willamette, Oregon
Silver Oak Alexander Valley, California, USA	Eagles Nest Winery Constantia, South Africa
Ghost Block Vineyards Yountville, California	Pahlmeyer “Jayson Wines” Napa, California, USA

Reviewed by:

Sean Overpeck (CFE)

Picture below was taken in 2014, Charleston,

South Carolina with my daughter at Grill 225

About Sean:

I am based out of St. Petersburg, Florida working in the food service industry for the past twenty years, and am currently with the American Embassy as the Executive Chef in Basra, Iraq. Formally I have worked with groups contracting in Afghanistan, and Antarctica, also working in restaurants in and around Atlanta, Georgia prior to the wars. I have also owned a catering company and served proudly in the United States Army Food Service Program. The idea for Wine, Dine, and Play started in late 2012 after a trip to Jordan, when I was asked by friends to write down the experiences from a few Jordanian restaurants, wine from the region that I tasted, and locations of interest such as Petra. Since that time, over 250 articles have been written on restaurants, including fifteen from the worlds top 100 lists of San Pellegrino and the Elite Travelers Guide. There are articles on exotic world locations such as Victoria Falls, and South African Safari’s; food recipes & Grand Food Dictionaries; ethnic country cuisines such as Afghan, and Peruvian; tasting tours of world cities like Charleston, Cape Town, and Dubai; and of course wine from vineyards in California, Oregon, the Carolina’s, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, with much more to see and write about.

Who is John Galt?

“Culinary perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things,

But in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

-Angelique Arnauld (1591-1661)