The Palm Cafe: Restaurant review

Tilapia Scampi Style at the Palm Cafe and Bar at the Kiwi Tennis Club in Indian Harbour Beach (Credit: Peg Hinely, special to Metromix)

The Palm Cafe and Bar of the Kiwi Tennis Club
4 palms (out of 5)
Where: 30 Tradewinds Drive, Indian Harbour Beach
Hours: 4:30 to 10 p.m. Monday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
Info: Call 321-779-3605 or visit www.kiwitennisclub.com.
More: The Palm Café is in the Kiwi Tennis Club, but the café is open to the public. The $29 dinner special is available Wednesday through Saturday. Check out their website for details on entertainment and nightly specials. 

Welcomed by six majestic royal palms, crisp white balconies and a covered veranda overlooking two center clay courts, it’s easy to feel instantly relaxed and ready for a casual meal at the Palm Café & Bar at the Kiwi Tennis Club. 

Although we reviewed the Palm a few years ago, we felt the new dinner special was worth another visit.

Arriving a few minutes early for our Thursday evening reservation, we were greeted by a welcome and a smile and quickly taken to a table for two. Partial to a more intimate booth, we spotted an open one and asked if we could change seats. The host was happy to accommodate.

Our server filled us in on the special of the night, the $29.95 dinner for two, which includes a bottle of wine. The featured wine was a Tisdale chardonnay, cabernet or merlot. We opted for the chardonnay. Tisdale is not a favorite of wine connoisseurs more educated than I, but its cool, crisp, fruitiness complimented the warm summer evening.  

Famished, we noticed other tables had been served breadsticks. After asking our server about them twice, we were served a basket of three warm breadsticks. A sucker for fresh warm bread, these were disappointingly bland and — close your ears, Paula Deen — dripping with too much melted butter.

Appetizers are not included in the dinner special, but we opted to try the Asian Pot Stickers. Served pan-fried with a side of soy sauce, the dish was just OK. I would guess they are not hand-made by the chef. They didn’t taste much different than the bag of pot stickers sitting in my freezer now. 

Before dinner arrived, we were served a house salad. We found it ironic that only two salad dressings were offered: creamy curry and tomato-basil vinaigrette, because the restaurant’s line of four dressings is prominently advertised in the restaurant and in the menu. We opted to try one of each. The salad was served cold and crisp, and the dressings were nice.

It’s fair to mention at this point that on this night the wait staff seemed to function in a team approach. We didn’t see our original waiter often, but were visited by a number of other staff members. While we never waited long for anything, it did lend to an air of excited business.

For dinner we chose the Pork Schnitzel, a specialty of the house, and Tilapia Scampi Style. Tilapia, a flaky mild white fish, was perfectly cooked, which is a testament to the skill of the kitchen staff, because by the time we ordered our meal, both the inside and outside breezeway seating area were packed, making for a very busy kitchen. 

Crab was loosely piled on top along with the shrimp. The sauce was more garlicky than expected and very good.

The best way to describe the pork schnitzel is to keep it as simple as the dish, which is to say it was simply delicious. This is a meal I will surely order again. The thin, plate-size boneless pork chop was lightly breaded and sautéed to a golden brown. It was topped with a lemon sauce complimented with fresh dill. It was light-tasting but very filling. 

Both meals were served with oven-roasted potatoes and green beans, both of which were nice, but the entrees were so good we didn’t spend much time with the sides.

While the Palm Café is quite relaxed and casual, make it a date night and get a babysitter for the young children. At only $29 per couple you can afford to.