The Culinary Vacation

Teresa and I just got back from a culinary vacation of sorts that I have been wanting to do for a while now. One of my favorite shows on satellite TV is Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network and I thought it would be fun to do a trip to find a few of the restaurants highlighted on the show. I found three of them in the Tampa-St. Pete area of Florida and what better time to visit Florida than winter in Minnesota?
We set off on Tuesday last week for St. Pete's Beach and landed at the Sandpiper Resort for a few days. We rented a Chrysler Sebring convertible for the week and headed out to find some great little spots to eat. We got to the hotel about mid-afternoon and settled in, then cruised the main drag with the top down on the convertible for some interesting food spots. We found Crabby Bill's just down the road and landed there for dinner about 6:00 pm. It was a fun place featuring fresh seafood as well as the usual stuff, like burgers and fries. We chose their Grilled Grouper Sandwich with lettuce, tomato,and onion, served with fries and cole slaw. It was excellent! To top it off, we were there at sunset and up on their second floor deck. There was also a wedding taking place on the beach below us, which was a nice surprise. The food was great, the sunset beautiful, the beer was cold and we capped the meal with a very nice slice of Key Lime Pie. It was a very nice start to the week!
The next morning we tried a very cool looking classic diner right next door to Crabby Bill's called Mad Fish. What caught my attention was the polished stainless steel of the traditional diner exterior and I hoped the interior and the food were as cool looking as the exterior. The interior was definitely as classy as the outside with Honduras Mahogany wall panels and polished stainless details everywhere inside. It had the feel of very classy diner with Cobalt Blue teardrop Halogen pendants over each table and nice tablecloths and fresh flowers at each booth. The downside was the opening greeting from the hostess. She was at best, disconnected and at worst, crabby. She did warm up a bit as we talked to her so I wrote that off to a bad day.
I saw that they offered Eggs Benedict and I always try that when available. Teresa had the Poached Lobster Omelet. Mine was very good, the Hollandaise a nice blend of lemon and butter. The dish also came with some interesting Home Fried Potatoes. They appeared to have been deep fried medallions of potato with a nice combination of seasonings on them. It was served with Sourdough Toast and excellent coffee. Teresa's omelet was not quite so successful. With Lobster we always expect the best but she found the omelet to be somewhat greasy and the lobster way overcooked, on the way to very rubbery; disappointing to say the least. I would, however go there again and give them another try. My food was very good and I can hope that the same girl doesn't work there next time. In fact, there was a manager there we spoke to about some of the local attractions and he was very helpful and pleasant, which made the experience much more palatable, if you will.
Later that afternoon we were on our way back from Tarpon Springs and found a local brewery at Dunedin and stopped there to try their offerings. Teresa tried their Apricot/Peach Ale, which definitely highlighted the fruit flavors with a mild hoppy finish to it. I had their Redhead Red Ale, which, amazingly, tasted exactly like Steve and Tim's Inaugural Brew, Steve Rudh's and my first attempt at brewing beer. It was uncanny. The brewery was housed in an addition to an old house in a residential neighborhood of Dunedin. I had a couple of huge roll-up glass garage doors to provide an open-air feel during warm weather and some very cool stainless welded tube tables and stools, reminiscent of the stainless tubing connecting the brewing vats at the rear of the building. the server was great and it was a nice stop along the way. It was a beautiful day in the low 80's with the top down cruising the Southwest Coast of Florida on a culinary mission to find some great food and this day had turned out pretty well so far. We hadn't tried any of the three Triple D joints yet but those are yet to come.
Eat well, my friend.
Tim