Joe Tess Place

5424 South 24th Street
Omaha, NE 68102
joetessplace.com

The first time I’ve heard about Joe Tess Place was from Guy Fiery in a show called ‘Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives’ on Food Network.
The place was very nice and clean. I especially liked the ‘fishing’ décor. It put me in the right mood and I knew what to expect right away.

The hostess was friendly and the servers were very nice. We were seated immediately (because we called ahead ha! :)) and offered drinks. The menu had a lot of varieties to choose from.
We ordered the Fisherman’s Chowder, Louisiana Crawdads for appetizers, Chicken strips for the kids, and Double famous fish dinners with baked beans for the side dish.

I had to say the chowder was awful! It was the worst chowder I’ve ever put in my mouth. Even my husband wouldn’t try it. I gave a little bit of the broth to my son and he disliked it. I felt like the cook threw leftover seafood and dumped them in the pot. Blah! Don’t ever order that soup!

OK, move on to the crawdads/crawfish. I’ve never had a whole crawfish before, so this was an entirely new experience for me. Theoretically I knew how to dismember the shell to get to the meat, but in reality it was harder than I thought. :(
I liked the crawdads with their cocktail dipping sauce. It tasted similar to shrimp cocktail, but with more flavor.

The famous fish dinner we had was awesome! It originally came with jacket fries and cole slaw, but we substituted it with baked beans. We both loved the fish for its crispiness and freshness. It did not come with any special dipping sauce, so we asked for tartar sauce. It tasted even better with the tartar sauce. Oh, we also loved the baked beans. Delicious!

In conclusion, the overall experience was great! I would love to come back there again. Maybe I’ll try different soup next time. Who knows!

Note: Pictures were taken from Joe Tess website.

Gama Ikan bakar & Seafood

Jl. M.T. Haryono 870A (Bangkong)
Semarang

This was the first time I came to Gama. Since I love seafood, it was the best decision to come here with good old friends. We were seated immediately and offered drinks. Now, being in a tropical country with a huge choice of tropical drinks, I ordered a young coconut drink with simple cocopandan syrup. Simply delicious!

OK, so we ordered a bunch of stuff from the menu. They offered a lot of varieties of seafood, mainly different kinds of grilled fish. We chose “Ikan terbang Gurame” (fried Gurame fish), “Srimping goreng” (fried scallop in shell), “Cumi goreng” (calamari), “Bawal hitam bakar” (grilled black Pomfret), and “cah ginseng” (stir fry ginseng leaves) for our lunch.

The fried fish was very ordinary for me, nothing special about it. However, I was in love with “Srimping Goreng”. OMG! It was superb! I think I can eat two portions of them myself. The vegetables were great, too. It was not overly cooked, it was perfect in both freshness and crunchiness.

I stayed away from calamari, due to its high content in cholesterol (ha!). I did ate one piece of it and it was OK. The grilled black Pomfret was great. It was deliciously sweet and properly seasoned. I probably preferred different fish to be grilled, but this one was not so bad.

If I have to rate this restaurant by 1-to-5 scale, 5 being highly satisfactory, I would rate this truly high 5. No doubt!
This place has become one of my favorite seafood eateries in Semarang. Go Gama!