MERMAIDS CAFE & CATERING OPENS AT OREGON COAST AQUARIUM
(PRWEB) November 13, 2002
NEWPORT, Ore USA -- The Oregon Coast Aquarium is pleased to announce that the Mermaids Café and Mermaids Catering are now open, with Joan LaMont and Madlyn Kelly providing the best of world cuisine for visitors and special events.
Complementing the current design of the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Mermaids Café provides a wide variety of healthy food selections, vegetarian items and quick foods for those on tight time schedules. Mermaids Catering offers menu choices to accommodate the full range of budgets for events from a formal meeting for 12 or a themed reception for 1,200.
Mermaids Café presents appetizers and salads, specialty plates, hot and cold sandwiches, and grilled items as well as a children's menu complete with peanut butter & jelly and macaroni & cheese. Specialty dishes include Joan LaMont's famous blackbean burritos, fish tacos, and Greek fish pitas. Other favorites include oyster stew, world-famous Mo's clam chowder and soup-of-the-day as part of the daily offerings. The Mermaids grill includes oysters, halibut, chicken or clam strips as well as fresh fish and chips.
In addition to the fast-food favorites of burgers and dogs, hot sandwich choices include a clubhouse, grilled eggplant, oysters, pastrami and grilled cheese. Turkey, ham and roast beef sandwiches are made to order with the visitor's choice of cheese.
A self-serve beverage station features soft drinks as well as hot coffee and tea service. A beverage cooler is well stocked with bottled water, juices, teas and specialty drinks to quench visitor's thirst. An espresso bar offers coffee, mochas, espresso and latte along with baked goods and Cascade Glacier ice cream.
Providing breakfast pastries, lunch, afternoon snacks, a coffee and juice kiosk, takeout and home service, plus full service catering for special events, Mermaids will continually develop its menus based upon feedback from customers. Catering menus are custom designed for each catering customer. All selections are prepared "from scratch" using the freshest seasonal ingredients.
Mermaids can create a catering menu for special evening events to suit the mood, from exquisite shrimp and Caesar salads to fish and meat entrees ranging from baked salmon and halibut to barbeque ribs and leg of pork. Fresh seafood on the Mermaids Catering menu includes cracked crab, stuffed filet of salmon, baked halibut or cod, broiled tuna or poached whole salmon.
From elegant sit-down dinners to casual barbecues, Mermaids Catering seeks to make all special events something to remember by making the Oregon Coast Aquarium one of the Northwest's premier banquet facilities.
For additional information about the new Mermaids Café or Mermaids Catering, call 541-867-3474, ext. 5422.
Located just south of Newport, the Oregon Coast Aquarium is named one of the top 10 aquariums in the nation by Parade magazine. Immerse yourself in Passages of the Deep and walk beneath the waves through a 200-foot clear underwater tunnel that snakes through three ocean habitats. Encounter sharks, rays and thousands of other fish swimming around you. Experience an exhilarating sensation when you look around and realize you're completely surrounded!
Experience the magic of "Enchanted Seas" while taking a journey into the mystical world of seahorses, sea dragons and other magical sea creatures worth protecting. This bright new exhibit features painted murals by artist Michael Cole and displays a collection of ocean gems featuring seahorses hanging onto seagrass with their prehensile tails; a rainbow of tropical reef fishes flitting among the coral; sea dragons trailing frilly appendages; cuttlefish hovering like blimps; and children enjoying gaze-to-gator vision of baby American alligators in a crawl-through tank. Visitors who crave a bit of the familiar will still find sea nettles, moon jellies and other jewels of the sea included with "Enchanted Seas".
Outdoors, rugged cliffs, caves and pools showcase the many fascinating fish and invertebrates of Oregon's coastal shores. Discover curious seals, sea lions and sea otters. A giant Pacific octopus lurks in an undersea coastal cave, and cartoonlike tufted puffins and other seabirds make their homes in one of the largest walk-through aviaries in North America.
Indoors, take a peek "Under the Lily Pad" at the Ocean Exploration Station for an up-close view of frogs, newts and salamanders as you discover that there's more to a pond than scum and explore the role these soggy spaces play in a healthy ecosystem. Visitors dip into the microscopic life of a pond community and see if they can identify the many creatures in the "duck soup" found in a pond ecosystem. Learn what's lurking beneath the pond's surface as you watch bluegills, compare newts and salamanders and search for tree and red-legged frogs. You'll be ribbetted!
Oregon Coast Aquarium admission is $10.75 for adults, $9.50 for seniors (65+), and $6.50 for children (4-13), children three and under are free. Advance tickets can be purchased on-line at www. aquarium. org. Group rates are available when arranged in advance. The Aquarium is open every day except December 25; hours are 10 a. m. to 5 p. m. up to Memorial Day weekend, expanding to 9 a. m. to 6 p. m. from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.
For additional information about the Oregon Coast Aquarium, surf www. aquarium. org or call 541-867-FISH.
