Big Eyed Fish

Big Eyed Fish, located in an adorable 100-­year old house painted bright turquoise with white trim, is lovely and likable. It can get noisy, but the venue makes that forgivable. The service is good, too, with frequent check­in, and the waiters and waitresses seem genuinely happy to see their guests. It’s the food that’s the problem. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just that so few dishes here meet expectations. The exceptions include the bacon-­wrapped quail with mushroom bread pudding, the Southern Sampler platter, with neat deviled eggs practically encrusted over the top with finely chopped bacon bits, flavorful, rich sausage sourced from Louisiana and serviceable cornmeal-­breaded fried green tomatoes. The bread pudding is good, too, even if it stops short of notability. However, overall blandness, broken or insignificant sauces and menu items that seem totally out of place with the theme subvert the good intentions. There’s a good, interesting and reasonably priced beer list, though, as well as a wine program.