Tag Archives: florida

American, Florida, Restaurant Reviews

The Lobster Shack

0 Comments

This little hole-in-the-wall in Key West serves up one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve ever had. A lobster grilled cheese!

20160102_122934

DSC09867

Essentially it is the meat they use for their lobster rolls, but slapped between two buttery toasted sliced of bread and covered with melted cheese. Fucking insanely buttery and delicious. I could eat this every day!

The lobster rolls are pretty good too. We went with the diablo roll, which has a spicy sri racha and jalapeno kick to it.

DSC09864

20160102_122930

Definitely get to this place if you’re ever in Key West. Look for the lobster cut out:

DSC09863

American, Florida, Restaurant Reviews

Half Shell Raw Bar

0 Comments

My wife found a happy hour deal for this place down in Key West: half price drinks and shellfish from 4:30 to 6:30.

DSC00012

We made it by about 6:00pm and put in a shitload of the available shellfish items. Everything was really good!

Raw oysters:

DSC00029

Raw clams:

DSC00028

Steamed clams:

DSC00023

Mahi mahi fish dip:

DSC00018

Peel and eat shrimp:

DSC00019

And, of course, frozen drinks!

DSC00016

The stone crabs are NOT on the happy hour deal, but we did try a few colossal and medium sized claws. Fucking amazing, and it comes with a really nice mustard-horseradish dipping sauce that works well with french fries.

DSC00031

When we were leaving we saw this cool Christmas tree made from crab and lobster traps. Very cool!

DSC00039

Florida, Other, Restaurant Reviews

Better Than Sex

0 Comments

Better Than Sex is a dessert-only restaurant in Key West that’s known for it’s over-the-top sexual references.

DSC09916

That’s apparently supposed to be a black “member” entering a white booty. Classy!

Anyway I had a “peanut butter perversion,” which is a super soft peanut butter mousse cake with chocolate covered pretzel bark. REALLY good, but can get heavy despite the lightness of the mousse.

DSC09926

My wife had this banana crepe cake, which was really good as well.

DSC09925

We also shared this unique brie and chocolate grilled cheese. I liked this because it wasn’t as heavily sweet as the other items.

DSC09924

This place does a lot of interesting drinks too, like “rimmed” glasses of wine or root beer floats with chocolate and caramel:

DSC09922

DSC09921

The staff here is incredibly chipper. It is SO chipper that it will ruin your sex mood if that’s your goal for coming into this place. The server kept saying things like “super awesome,” and “girlfriend” (when talking with the ladies at the table).

American, Florida, Restaurant Reviews

Camille’s

0 Comments

We hit this Key West joint because it was well-rated on Trip Advisor for having a great bloody mary.

DSC09855

The awesome, friendly and very knowledgeable bartender, Al, mixed this wonderful shit up perfectly. It’s made with house-infused bacon vodka and a killer bloody mix that had both spice and meatiness.

DSC09852

We were so impressed that we came back for dinner that night to try the all-you-can-eat crab dinner.

DSC09912

Not bad, but like Prime Steakhouse here in Key West, it could be anywhere. The crabs were tasty, but they’re not local or fresh. I was hoping that they had some stone crabs on the menu.

Al recommended earlier that we try the artichoke dip. We weren’t that impressed. It was made with pickled artichokes I think, not fresh, so it had an awkward flavor and texture.

DSC09911

My wife’s mussels appetizer was massive. Big enough for an entree, and they were good to boot.

DSC09914

I also got to try this nice blueberry wheat beer as well:

DSC09910

Overall I’d say you should come here for a bloody, talk it up with Al and share some mussels. Skip the rest.

Florida, Other, Restaurant Reviews

Croissants de France

0 Comments

We stopped by this Duval Street (Key West) joint for a biegnet, but we were somewhat let down.

DSC09943

20160103_135002

They were more like doughnuts than biegnets, but we at least tried one with a key lime filling to make it a bit better. Not like NOLA, that’s for sure.

20160103_135117

20160103_135226

20160103_135258-01

American, Florida, Product Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Hurricane Hole

0 Comments

This is a joint product/service and restaurant review. My buddies and I booked a small charter fishing trip off of Key West. For four hours it cost about $800 all-in (with tip and everything). While this is super expensive, it is worth every penny if you happen to be able to keep and eat everything that you catch.

20160101_135939

We started off catching all the bait we would use on the trip. Captain Brad threw out his net and picked up minnows and shiners. Then we went out about five miles for some yellow fin snapper and yellow jackets. One of my buddies even got a mackerel at this spot. I had a shark hooked at one point, but the fucker bit through the line and took my bait.

After a bit, we went to a second location off the shore where we picked up some bonita and tuna.

20160101_165530

20160101_155806(0)

20160101_160946

Over all we had a really successful day. I caught the most fish, while my buddy got the biggest (a 15lb tuna).

20160101_174025

20160101_173713

20160101_173738

Captain Brad filleted about half of our catch, which came out to roughly 14lbs.

20160101_175031

That’s a lot of fish! We could have packed it on ice and shipped it home, but we figured we may as well gorge on it and give the rest for chum and whoever else wanted the meat. We probably caught over $1000 worth of fish.

The restaurant at the dock will cook up all your food for $12 per person, and you get sides to go with it. We fed our whole gang of eight people with tons to spare.

20160101_190357

They did some fried snapper, tuna tataki, blackened tuna and buffalo mackerel. Everything was really good.

pixlr-01

The conch fritters here were pretty good too, which we ordered in addition to the fish feast.

20160101_181539

Florida, Pizza

Clemente’s Trolley Pizzeria

0 Comments

Nope. This was just a big failure. We likened it to Boboli. We were better off hitting Denny’s for our late night NYE food binge. The setting was cool enough, with a re-purposed trolley car as the kitchen, and large, old, wooden cable spools as tables.

DSC09842

There were even some “free range” chickens to play with.

DSC09838

But the “brick oven” pizza itself was small, over-priced ($20 for a small pie is retarded) and rubbery. Skip this place. There are better Duval Street pizza joints nearby.

DSC09840

American, Burgers, Florida, Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Restaurant Reviews

Beach Bunnies

0 Comments

Right on A1A in Las Olas sits this ocean-side burger and two-for-one giant margarita joint.

20160104_150507

The burger was apparently voted “best in Ft. Lauderdale,” but I’m hoping there are better options out there.

20160104_150821

The burger was good and juicy, but lacked seasoning on the patty itself. It could benefit from more cheese too, perhaps.

20160104_153057

20160104_153212

Fries are sold separately, and you can cheese either seasoned curly fries, or sweet potato waffle fries.

The chicken tacos were pretty decent, despite the cheese being your standard bagged/shredded style.

20160104_153123

Florida, Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Restaurant Reviews

Amigos Tortilla Bar

0 Comments

This Key West spot is home to some of the best tacos I’ve ever had. For just $12 you get a platter of three tacos (choose hard shell, round soft flour or square soft corn) with sides of rice and beans.

DSC09890

I went with carnitas (spiced pork meat), baja fried fish and shrimp. The carnitas was a bit salty, but it was packed with juicy flavor.

DSC09884

The seafood tacos are topped with a really nice fresh cheese, as you can see on this shrimp taco:

DSC09885

But by far the best taco of the three was this baja fried fish taco. The golden crisp on the outside of the fish was light and crunchy – not bready at all. So fresh and delicious.

DSC09889

The rice and beans are standard issue – tasty.

DSC09891

My wife ordered this baja fried fish bowl, which is an amazing deal for just $9.

DSC09893

The place also serves up some killer nachos and roasted corn. You MUST try the roasted corn, even if it is the only thing you end up trying here. Fucking absurdly good.

DSC09882

DSC09881

They also have a ton of fun hot sauces to light your ass up, and great strawberry margaritas.

20160102_162854

DSC09878

American, Florida, Fusion, Restaurant Reviews

Square One

0 Comments

For our first meal in Key West, we hit up Square One. The place had a really nice drink menu and food selections, so I figured it was a perfect spot to try.

DSC09763

The decor is minimalist rustic, if that makes any sense.

DSC09773

DSC09845

DSC09846

It looks like pig wings have made their way down to Florida. The ones here were a healthy size and tasted really great. They were breaded lightly and fried crisp. The meat was super tender.

DSC09766

These duck dumplings were a very nice Chinese inspired appetizer as well. The flavors were robust.

DSC09765

My wife had this nice bowl of mussels, which were actually an appetizer portion but probably big enough for an entree if you are indulging in a few starters.

DSC09772

The snapper was all gone, but they had some local grouper. It came seared, and served atop some nice soba noodles.

DSC09768

A couple of days later my wife and I went back to try their flight of bloody mary drinks at breakfast.

DSC09843

From right to left that’s tomatillo and melon, carrot habanero, yellow tomato and regular tomato. Each was rimmed with a different type of salt to accentuate the flavors within. Really nice.

I had a lobster cobb salad to go with the bloodies. Lots of good quality lobster meat!

DSC09849

If you’re ever in Key West, I highly recommend this place. It’s great for drinks at the bar or any meal of the day. If native New Yorker Lucas is tending bar, you’ll have a great experience.