Teresa and I recently returned home from our second culinary adventure vacation in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. We did this same trip last year in search primarily of the restaurants featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We had such a great time that we just had to return to try a few more that we couldn't get to and to look for other great spots as well. We arrived on a Saturday in Tampa, procured a rented 2012 Chrysler 200 convertible and proceeded to our all-time favorite restaurant in the area; Keegan's Seafood Grille in Indian Rocks Beach, about 25 miles from the Tampa Airport and 15 miles from our hotel in St. Pete's Beach down the road.
Keegan's is a very low-key restaurant with a smallish dining area and bar in a fairly non-descript strip mall along Gulf Shores Blvd. It really is a kind of "sleeper" restaurant. The food, however, is nothing short of spectacular.
We arrived around 7:00 pm to find a fairly long line waiting for a table; no matter, I would wait for an hour for this food! We signed in with Rob and struck up a conversation. He directed us to the bar for a drink while we waited. Now we had been here before and knew that their White Sangria was amazing ( I have been working on figuring it out for a year now). The wait was not all that long and it was fun to talk with Rob, who seemed to be either a manager or owner. I told him that this blog was featured as #3 fan blog on his website from our visit last year so here I was again to write some more. By the way you can check them out at keegansseafood.com to find out about their daily specials. This night was Mediterranean Rubbed Char grilled Swordfish on a bed of Parmesan Smashed Potatoes with fresh Tomato and Olive Relish, Drizzled with a dark Balsamic and Citrus Reduction. Now doesn't that sound great? It was. We had another Sangria with dinner and Teresa had a piece of their Key Lime Pie for dessert.
They typically have 2 or 3 entree specials and a couple appetizers not on the normal menu. The seafood is always high quality and cooked perfectly and very pleasing to the eye as well. We came back a couple days later for another round and I'll tell you more about that in another episode.
If you can make your way here you will not be disappointed!
Dine well,
Tim
Showing posts with label Swordfish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swordfish. Show all posts
Monday, March 19, 2012
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The culinary vacation continues
In my last post we started our culinary adventure in Florida and we continue today with the next stop on the trail at Keegan's Seafood Grille, at Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. This was one of the destinations we found from Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and It very quickly became our favorite spot for seafood in the area. We ended up coming back three times to this spot because it was just that good! We started on this Wednesday evening with the She-Crab Soup which was a velvety cream-style soup loaded with shredded crab meat and was absolutely delicious! The next course was a Ginger Encrusted Green Leek Grilled Swordfish served with Lime Zested White Rice and a Fresh Pineapple/Orange Relish and a Szechuan Aioli to top it all off. It was amazing!
The restaurant itself was not necessarily outstanding and it was more of a typical local bar and grille type place with a couple TVs on the wall and the usual booths and tables but the food was so outstanding that we forgot all about the surroundings and were captivated with the flavors at hand. Our server was really cool and we enjoyed talking with her throughout the meal. We decided that we were definitely coming back the next day for appetizers before dinner.Upon our return, I saw on the menu that they were offering Burgundy Marinated Escargot and Sesame Seared Ahi Tuna for the first courses and we just had to try those. We arrived at 6:30 PM and ordered both of those items; they were again, absolutely amazing! The Ahi Tuna was seared rare and served with soy sauce and wasabi sauce. The Escargot, which I LOVE, were served in Mushroom Caps in Butter and Garlic with Herbs; fabulous! The main course was a Mediteranean Rubbed, Grilled Escolar with Italian Parmesan Smashed Potatoes and a Mixed Olive Tomato Relish/ Dark Balsamic and Citrus Reduction. Teresa ordered a White Sangria that was freshly mixed and excellent! It was made with Chablis wine and from what we could taste had Orange juice with pulp, some simple syrup, Lime, Cinnamon and possibly some Allspice and , of course, Ice. This restaurant was truly becoming our favorite of the trip. Everything we tried was perfectly cooked and full of flavor. I would definitely encourage a trip to this place very soon! We had originally decided to go to another spot for dinner but after trying the appetizers we couldn't resist staying for the main course.
My choice for this evening was a Grilled Grouper Sandwich served on a grilled Onion Roll with lettuce, tomato and a sauce; again, very good, indeed! This had been a very successful day in terms of finding the best places to dine and we wanted to return the next day to see what the special dish of the day might be, as each one we had tried so far had been wonderful.
We will continue our adventure tomorrow with some more culinary delights.
Eat well and often,
Tim
The restaurant itself was not necessarily outstanding and it was more of a typical local bar and grille type place with a couple TVs on the wall and the usual booths and tables but the food was so outstanding that we forgot all about the surroundings and were captivated with the flavors at hand. Our server was really cool and we enjoyed talking with her throughout the meal. We decided that we were definitely coming back the next day for appetizers before dinner.Upon our return, I saw on the menu that they were offering Burgundy Marinated Escargot and Sesame Seared Ahi Tuna for the first courses and we just had to try those. We arrived at 6:30 PM and ordered both of those items; they were again, absolutely amazing! The Ahi Tuna was seared rare and served with soy sauce and wasabi sauce. The Escargot, which I LOVE, were served in Mushroom Caps in Butter and Garlic with Herbs; fabulous! The main course was a Mediteranean Rubbed, Grilled Escolar with Italian Parmesan Smashed Potatoes and a Mixed Olive Tomato Relish/ Dark Balsamic and Citrus Reduction. Teresa ordered a White Sangria that was freshly mixed and excellent! It was made with Chablis wine and from what we could taste had Orange juice with pulp, some simple syrup, Lime, Cinnamon and possibly some Allspice and , of course, Ice. This restaurant was truly becoming our favorite of the trip. Everything we tried was perfectly cooked and full of flavor. I would definitely encourage a trip to this place very soon! We had originally decided to go to another spot for dinner but after trying the appetizers we couldn't resist staying for the main course.
My choice for this evening was a Grilled Grouper Sandwich served on a grilled Onion Roll with lettuce, tomato and a sauce; again, very good, indeed! This had been a very successful day in terms of finding the best places to dine and we wanted to return the next day to see what the special dish of the day might be, as each one we had tried so far had been wonderful.
We will continue our adventure tomorrow with some more culinary delights.
Eat well and often,
Tim
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