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Executive Lifestyles - Dining & Spirits
Who's the Boss? Nick, Of Course
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Nick's Fishmarket of Hawaii
150 E. Palmetto Park Road, Boca Raton
561/393-9880
Nicksboca.com
The business card of Nicholas S. Nickolas puts it simply: "Boss" is listed underneath his distinctive name. And Boss he most certainly is, and certainly has been during his four decades in the most trying of trades -- starting in Hawaii and now returning to Hawaii with Nick's Fishmarket of Hawaii in Boca Raton.
The Boss has been in Boca for 17 years as director of food and beverage operations for the Boca Raton Resort and Club and in charge of Nick's Fishmarket, a name carried across the country from Hawaii to Las Vegas, Beverly Hills and Chicago. Forty years and 34 restaurants, starting with the first Nick's Fishmarket in 1968, which did a million dollars the first year as its winning formulas were developed and perfected.
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The key word for Nick is "Hospitality" with a large capital "H." From beginning to end, from arrival to departure, everyone who enters Nick's front door is given a Big Hand greeting. Not a jolting brass band kind of welcome but considerably more professional -- that's the operative word, professional, demonstrated by each and every member of his staff. And what a staff it is. Fully three-quarters of them have been in place for more than 10 years, an incredible record in an industry infamous for fast turnover and shifting loyalties.
Skills, experience, attitude and desire to satisfy were obvious throughout the meal as four of us took our first turns at the newest rage of an ever-exciting Boca. Nick's not only has a super-sophisticated setting for a restaurant. He has indoor and outdoor bars, all kinds of special attractions, including a happy hour that he's dubbed hungry hour, private meeting and dining rooms with all the necessary high-tech extras. Plus a Club Maui, called "the ultimate upscale experience" where "the area's sophisticated set come to mix, mingle and meet."
I haven't ventured down those roads yet and am content to have such a thoroughly polished place to indulge in an upscale Pupu Platter ($26) with barbecued spareribs, crispy prawns, sesame chicken and fried seafood dumplings or one of the other specialties on the select menu, everything from a "Plain Ole Salad" and spicy wonton soup to a wonderful Greek Maui Waui Salad gathering of bay shrimp, avocado, cucumber, calamata olives, feta, sweet Maui onions and pepperoncini Greek Papous dressing or Nevada Nick's salad with Stilton bleu cheese and shallots ($9 to $14).
Then there's Trader Nick's egg roll, Hong Kong crab cake, calamari like none other, lettuce burgers and teriyaki beef filet bits with sticky rice ($12 to $16) as prelude to something as solid and special as Thai-style clams and mussels in coconut broth, stir-fried lamb with Japanese eggplant, curried prawns or chicken with jasmine rice and steamed fillets of fresh fish ($26 to $31).
