Red Light Little River

Oct 14th, 2011

Unsavory location both inside and out. However, the food is good and the service professional.
Aug 26th, 2008

Attached on one side of the hotel facing the water and the street is RedLight. Don't let the tacky Christmas lights and the less then opulent outside fool you, there is a great place to eat waiting just inside. Think of RedLight as a diner that does fine dinning. Don't expect to get a quick bite to eat here and be out the door in half an hour. My dinning experience took the better part of two hours. My date that night and I walked in without a reservation. We were given a seat by the door, but because we didn't have reservations we were happy to just get to try the place out. The booth we got was a cute little two seater the booth had seen better days because the bottoms were broken so you had to shift cheeks every 10 minutes to keep comfortable. Food: We ordered two of their cocktails one "Screaming Viking" and a mojito. The Screaming Viking was a cucumber flavored gin drink. It came out chilled in a martini glass and to be honest tasted like cucumber juice was splashed on booze. Perhaps that's what they were going for - but whoa I wasn't expecting it. The mojito was okay; everyone thinks they make a better one so it wasn't anything to write home about. We decided to order three apps to try a whole sort of items offered at RedLight. We started with the citrus mussels. The mussels were cooked very well and the smells of the citrus were nice. This was a well-cooked dish but didn't really leave any memorable mark. Next we tried a half order of the lobster that was on special and the BBQ shrimp that everyone talks about. Let me start with the lobster, much like the mussels it was well cooked but didn't really give me any reason to rave about it. This was prepared with rosemary potatoes and yellow squash hash. Now on to the star of the meal. The BBQ shrimp - yea baby. These were out of this world. They aren't so much BBQ'ed as it tasted like they were grilled and sauced with a great BBQ type sauce. Don't think of your typical BBQ here. Its more like this great dipping sauce/broth in the bottom of the dish. I tasted healthy amounts of balsamic vinegar in there; my date swears she tasted evergreen. Whatever the taste, the chef won't give up the secret. I'll give red light three stars. They are doing great things here. I can see this place really adding a healthy and needed experience to the MiMo part of town. I still would say it has some growing/finance pains to go thru. Its fun to have the atmosphere of a diner and even the kitchy throwbacks but I still want new tables to eat at, and seats that aren't broken to sit in. The prices are very reasonable (the two of us got out of there for less the $100). All the food was good; the only great food was the shrimp. All in all it was a great dinner. I was worried about going there for a date but it turned out to be a really unique spot. I wouldn't go if I wanted a really world class experience but it was a fun, unique experience that im happy I tried.
Jun 13th, 2012