Aldo's Harbor Restaurant - Santa Cruz

This restaurant is situated at the Santa Cruz Harbor. Parking is on the street or when it's full, just proceed to the parking lot below. On a nice day there will be quite an amount of boaters and kayakers so parking could also be tricky. Parking meters take nickels, dimes and quarters.

The view on a nice day is spectacular. While waiting to be seated we could just stand there watching the sail boats, kayaks, etc going in and out of the harbor. The other day we could actually see a few sea otters playing in the otter. On the other side of the restaurant is a path leading towards the beach. That day the weather was so nice and there was a picnic going on at the beach. Far away we could see the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

We arrived around 11:15 and the restaurant was pretty busy already. We got a table for 12 and decided to walk around to check out the harbor. When we went back our table was ready. We had our two little nephews with us so the waitress brought us kids menu and crayons for the younger one.

The kids' mom ordered chicken nugget with fries for both of them. Me and hubby decided on fried calamari with fries and spicy fish taco with chipotle sauce. My sis-in-law got coconut shrimp and my other nephew got mushroom's and swiss burger. I guess it didn't take that long to get our orders because we were busy chatting.

My calamari was quite a big size but looked undercooked. Not golden color enough. I haven't been able to find a place that serves good fried calamari yet. Maybe I should stop the quest since it seemed almost impossible. Calamari was bland, most likely previously frozen. Hubby's spicy fish tacos was slightly better. The sauce wasn't spicy and not enough kick. Almost bland.

The coconut shrimp came with some sort of sweet sour dipping sauce that was pretty good. The shrimp itself wasn't much to write about. Bland and flavorless. I used the dipping sauce for the calamari and the tacos instead. I can't say anything about the burger since I didn't have a chance to sample. It looked pretty good though.

We wouldn't be back for a very long time. The food did very little to entice us. The only good thing was the view. On a very nice day, it's nice to sit outdoor and enjoy lunch with companies. That's about it.

Aldo's Harbor Restaurant
616 Atlantic Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95062  (831) 426-3736
www.aldos-cruz.com