Our friends Jacob and Phil have recently moved down to Tampa, so lately we’ve been going to the same places for lunch and dinner, or cooking at home.  Falling into a habit of going to the same joints to grab a bite is easy, especially when life gets a little hectic (figuring out the new dynamics in our household isn’t stressful but it does require you to reassess how you spend your free time).  So, when Chris, of our very own site’s fame, sent me a link (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/dining/27united.html?ref=dining) about the brief history of the devil crab croquette and Tampa’s abiding affinity for it, I was compelled to go find a joint to try this out.  I wound up settling on Brocato’s from the title picture of the article. After loading up the Blue-Bomber on this sweltering Tampa afternoon, we trundled east on I4 to meet our fate.

The first thing I noticed was that Brocato’s was busy.  Not just slightly busy, but the kind of busy where folks are ‘waiting to get a spot in the large parking lot’-busy. A busy restaurant is always a good indicator of a restaurants worth (this is not always true, see: Chili’s, Appleby’s, etc.  I think people just like going to those places for beer specials… that’s the only logical conclusion; who is willing to pay $13 for a paltry amount of crappy nachos?).  As we entered the restaurant I saw a steady stream of people coming in to place an order and sitting down or just grabbing their food and taking off.  This rate of turnover is pretty amazing considering we got to Brocato’s shortly after 1pm.  

Brocato’s offers a fairly large menu: sandwiches, soups, desserts, and of course crab croquettes. You may be asking, “What is a crab croquette?” Sauteed green onion, jalapenos (or green peppers), with Crab meat, next you cover it in a breading and deep fry; it’s like a Tampa empanada. They have a Pick 1, 2, or 3 lunch offer where you can choose from 6 or 7 different items and a drink.  We mistakenly chose 2x ‘Pick-2′s and 1x ‘Pick-3′.  Why were we mistaken?  Well, we had misled ourselves on how much food we would receive.  In the future, with 3 people, we would order the Pick 3 and get a couple additional drinks as the additional items we ordered were only sampled and not consumed en masse.  If you order the Pick 3, you need to bring a bear’s appetite and the ability to hibernate (after consuming that much food). I had brought eyes that were much larger than my stomach and ordered the Pick 3; I chose to get the 6 inch Cuban sandwich, Devil Crab Croquette, and Fries.  All washed down with an unsweet ice-tea.

What the picture fails to bely is the actual size of the crab croquette, which measured in at about the size of Shane Carwin’s fists (which are in fact the size of lunchboxes).  The pictures also fail to convey the weight of the 6-inch Cubans. While they fail to weigh in at a metric ton, they are indeed loaded with enough meat to burden anyone stuck with carrying a bag of Cubans back to their lazy coworkers.  Portions aside, the food itself was fantastic.  A word of warning, if you don’t like crab you probably shouldn’t order a crab croquette.  If you DO like crab meat, you will find that they must’ve used roughly 50 actual crab claws to make each croquette and will be pleased to find it’s not the fake, reconstituted fish parts (that get labelled as “crab meat” but in fact look like creamsicle colored crinkle-cut fries). From what I could tell the croquettes were made of crab meat, jalapenos, green onions, salt, pepper, butter, and maybe lemon.  I thought this was fantastic lunch fare and would gladly bring out-of-towners here. I didn’t house my Cuban sandwich as I was loaded down from the crab croquette alone but the bit I did sample was fantastic, made like a traditional Cuban that has been stuffed to the gills with meat. The crinkle-cut fries were fairly standard ‘fry’ fair, but unremarkable only in that they were good fries and not excellent in some respect (they were cooked properly, not undercooked, not soggy).

Brocato’s has a very laid back atmosphere.  While I was there they were serving everyone from suits to the working man.  It appears if you like food you’ll wind up at Brocato’s regardless of your station in life.

I had a fantastic time and really enjoyed my food.  Brocato’s earned a Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.  My one minor complaint is that it took a while to get my food, but considering the volume of customers Brocato’s handles it’s very understandable.

-Matt in Tampa

Mykonos is located in a tourist area of Tarpon Springs.  This particular spot is populated by Greek people, and the primary trade (other than trinkets and ‘Florida’-baubles) is sea sponges.  So despite it being fairly chilly for Florida in December, you could see tourists wandering around that evening in shorts and wearing no shirts (I happened to be wearing a hoodie). This particular section of Tarpon Springs has a particular flavor or character to itself that most of the Tampa area lacks.  I doubt I can accurately ascribe the character that belongs to the town, but there is a grit and a feeling of history for the place.  For those of you who haven’t visited Tampa, a large portion of the surrounding development is either new, and fairly unremarkable architecture.  Either that, or it’s filled with car dealerships, boat dealerships, and titty bars.  When driving Sia down to Tampa for the first time, I made the mistake of taking the “scenic” route and getting off of I-75 South and rerouting to US 19 somewhere around Odessa or New Port Richey.  So her first fill of the area was driving past an alternating strip of Walmarts, Car Dealerships, Boat Dealerships, assorted Fast Food joints, and a slew of greasy Strip Clubs.  In retrospect, that was a fair sampling of the Tampa area (admittedly there is more to Tampa than just that).  Enough of my diatribe on the ‘city planning’ of the greater Tampa Bay area and on to Mykonos.

When we first arrived to Mykonos, it was quite busy. The dining area appeared fairly small and very busy.  We had to wait for 10 or 15 minutes to get a table. While waiting to be seated I noticed that a number of the servers and cooks actually spoke Greek (as well as being staffed with folks from south of the Border as any great restaurant is).  The music coming out over the boombox was also Greek, and the head chef was Greek.  This all seemed indicative of having a fairly “authentic” and totally righteous meal.

Everyone showed up with a hearty appetite.  Before we ordered we were served freshly baked bread.  It was fairly standard ‘before the meal’-bread, but from what I understand Mykonos has it’s own in-house bakery. For an appetizer we ordered Saganaki (Opa!) which was salty, buttery and delicious. We also ordered Keftedes which is a pan-fried potato pastry.  The Keftedes were crispy on the outside yet very moist and creamy inside; they were very rich. The salads that came with virtually every meal were composed of very fresh vegetables and a chunk of feta.  The Chicken Lemon Soup had a very strong lemon flavor.  The chicken was shredded and was great.   Between the salad and the soup you could have stopped and had a nice meal from that alone.

To attempt to describe the meal that night would be to do it an injustice.  To put it simply, the food was like an exquisite Greek orgy of flavors in my mouth. As is typical with my family, we all shared what we ordered so I got to taste everything on the table.  I ordered the Mousaka, Dan got the Fila Dolmades (essentially Grape Leaves topped with an egg-lemon sauce), Sia ordered the Garides Mykonos which was a shrimp dish sautéed with fresh tomatoes, onions, herbs and feta cheese served on a bed of rice, my Mom ordered the Garides Ellinikes which is shrimp sautéed in garlic, oregano and Greek spices, and finally my Dad ordered the Lamp Chops which was served with another plate heaped with rice.  We were also given a plate of freshly sautéed pees (which were very good).  The portions were tremendous.

To top the evening off we ordered Baklava and Rice Pudding.  The Rice Pudding was fairly thick and the Baklava was Baklava.  We were also served a plate with a freshly cut apple topped with cinnamon which happened to trump the Baklava and Rice Pudding.

As you can see we had a considerable amount of leftovers to bring home (and later demolish).  We had an amazing evening at Mykonos and I would highly recommend it to anyone passing by Tarpon Springs.  Hell, it’s worth the effort to make the trip to Mykonos if you’re in the Tampa area.

Definitely a well deserved Rating: 5 out of 5 stars .

Belated in Tampa,
-Matt

333 Prospect Street
Niagara Falls, NY 14303-1105
(716) 282-0007

Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Awesome. I think it is better than your normal sports bar fare.
Service Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Prompt and friendly. I like a bartender who introduces his or her self.
Atmosphere Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars – I’m a fan of the rediculous stuff that litters the walls. Other than the ROCK stuff, its like a sports bar
Price Rating: 2 out of 5 stars – I guess all of that ROCK stuff costs a lot of money….the food costs more than it should, but not terribly so
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Good food, good service, and a new glass for my collection.

I was in a touristy spot, so I had to eat at a touristy place. I don’t know why, but I like Hard Rock Cafes. They scored major points in my book back when I lived in Japan as they were the only restaurant that had free refills on sodas. It’s the little things.

Anyway, I’ve spent a pretty penny at Hard Rocks through my years, and have various hats, shirts, glasses and shot glasses to prove it. I even have a membership card that does…something…that I haven’t figured out yet.

This Hard Rock was no exception. I ended up with about a $120 bill which I’ll break down later. But it is ok, because I walked to the casino and placed $100 on black for the sole purpose of scoring some sweet-eats-money, and it worked.

First off, the atmosphere is pretty neat. I like all the rock and/or roll memorabilia that litters the joint. I also like how the staff knows they work at a Hard Rock.

I sat at the bar because as usual I was all alone. The bartender immediately came over and introduced himself in an informal-best-buddies-I work at Hard Rock kind of way and I got my first beer. The beers are a little over priced, but it was cold and poured properly, so that’s fine.

I first ordered a batch of wings because I was interested in the combination of smoked and buffalo flavors, and as suspected, they were pretty dang good. Now, for being only a short drive from Buffalo, I probably should have just gone somewhere there for wings, but whatever. These were mighty fine. Not too hot, not too vinegary, and just SLATHERED in sauce. The smoked flavor wasn’t as strong as I had hoped, but you could tell it was there.

Now comes the entrée. I got an open faced sirloin sandwich which really means you get a fat cut of meat on a big piece of bread with a whole bunch of crap on it. It was awesome. The meat was a bit more overcooked than what I had ordered, but it wasn’t bad at all. The meat wasn’t really seasoned beyond your basic stuff, so it pretty much tasted like any sirloin, but it was juicy (which is actually required by law for an open face sandwich). The fixings were also tops. God help you if you actually try and eat this like a sandwich. I’ll help you too.

For funzies I ordered a side of the “Twisted” macaroni and cheese because lets face it, I effin love macaroni and cheese and I had a BURNING NEED to know what made it “Twisted”. Unfortunately I never did find out why it was called “Twisted” but I have some theories. A) The type of noodle they used. B) the fact that it was kind of spicy. C) It is served at a Hard Rock Café. D) All of the above but mostly C. Doesn’t matter, it was delicious. You can see them in the picture above nestled next to my meats.

I also waffled down several beers throughout dinner because I could.

Now, here is where my tab starts growing by leaps and bounds. I bought merch. I can’t help it. I got a beer glass (which comes w/ beer in it) and a shirt for my lady. I also joined that membership thing which cost a few bucks too. All in all it came to like $120, but since the kind Native Americans paid for $100 of it, I was quite pleased with dinner and myself.

Then I went to see some waterfall everyone kept talking about.

My first impression of La Bamba is that it looks like a very ‘Florida’ kind of restaurant. As you can see in the shot above, even the curbs are a bright and vibrant color. I first came to La Bamba on the good word of my coworker Jeff. His advice (which still stands): Anything Pork, and you Can’t Go Wrong With The Cuban. While Jeff might not have the wildest spectrum of food choices, he has never steered me wrong. So, with that chunk of advise I made my trip to La Bamba (actually just a short walk from the office, so not exactly a trip).

(I still don’t know why they had the orange construction cones up… it certainly didn’t appear that they were doing anything to the walk-way. Maybe it’s so someone bound to a wheelchair doesn’t try and ollie the steps)

La Bamba is a family owned and run restaurant. You can expect to see the same familiar faces dishing up your food each jaunt to this Spanish-American joint. According to their signage they serve Breakfast and Lunch. While I’ve had their Lunch items a number of times I have never visited them for Breakfast, but the prices are very modest. Their dining area can seat about 50 people.

As you can see above, La Bamba dishes out fairly typical Spanish-American cuisine. I stuck to Jeff’s advise and went for the pulled pork with a side of rice and green beans. I was in and out in about 5 minutes. La Bamba accepts cash and credit (I saw something on another site mentioning that they only accept cash, not true). Most of La Bamba’s menu choices are under $10 so you won’t break the bank grabbing a bite.

(Right before I jumped those 3 HUUUUUUUUGE steps: fakie 360 nose-grab… on my, um, modified wheel chair? That should be the next step in ‘XTREME’ sports, wheelchair sports; Murderball excluded, I’m talking about half-pipes and street riding. For the 2 people who read this who don’t know me, I don’t use a wheelchair… I’m just insensitive.)

As you can see, you get quite a bit of food. In hindsight I didn’t need any chips, there is a lot of food here.

The meat is Salty, moist, and almost buttery. Very strong rich flavor, but not cloying in its strength. Rice and green beans are second fiddle to the pork. Greens are a little soggy, they could use more snap. The rice is bland and generic… could really use some pepper, but it balances the pork well.

I really like to turn everything into a samich. Anything on a slice of bread instantly gets better (cake and ice cream included, nothing like Mint Chocolate Chip on a slice of swirled Rye & Pumpernickel! On second thought, that earlier statement might be a little hyperbolic. Just a little.). I have also had the Cuban from La Bamba, and it’s a solid choice. I would definitely recommend this joint to anyone looking for some fair-priced Lunch.

My overall experience merited a Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars. I’ve had better, and I have yet to actually be enticed into sitting at La Bamba’s and eating but the food is great at the price offered.

-Matt in Tampa

1731 W Grand River Ave
Okemos, MI 48864-1803
(517) 347-9066

“Don’t call it a comeback, I been here for years, rockin’ my peers and puttin’ suckas in fear, makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon, listen to the bass go BOOM”

That’s right I’m back from my sabbatical.  “What pray tell were you doing?” one might ask.  “None of your goddamn business!!!11!!!!!1!11!” one might reply.  But seriously, I was saving children from burning buildings and curing diseases that plague small, cute animals (read substitute teaching and eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches).  When I finished with this exhausting but rewarding work I found myself to be famished, so I called some friends and we repaired to a relatively new local eatery: T&D’s Coney Grill.

As you can see this is very nice, or at least nicer, than your typical diner/”coney island”, this is probably because this is the former set of Villegas, the ill-fated Okemos bistro.  The interior is very pleasant, with subdued lighting and muted colors that don’t try to claw your eyes out with a visual spoon.  The bar, situated right by the front entrance, is fantastic, long, with great views of the kitchen and the waitress stations (dinner and a show), and makes me sad that I can’t plunk myself down and drink myself into oblivion.  Despite the obvious superiority of the bar over other seating, my party and I chose a booth/table combo, as there were three of us.

I arrived to the table late, as I was unsuccessfully trying to snap a picture of the exterior, and as I sat down the waitress approached with drinks for my fellow diners, she gave a not entirely pleasant snort of surprise and asked if I needed something to drink,  I should have seen this as the beginning of a not very pleasant pattern, but I blithely pushed on and ordered a water.  More on the waitress in a bit.

The menu at T&D’s is pretty typical for a coney-style restaurant.  And if you from around the east lansing area, you  might notice that it has a strikingly similar layout to the menu at Hannah’s Koney Island on Hagadorn.  This is because they are operated by the same owners.  In any case, the menu has the usual greek centered diner fare that one comes to expect and love from a coney island.  Gyros, sandwiches, coney dogs, saganaki, greek salads, etc…

The waitress came back and we began to order.  My female dining companion ordered, and then my male compatriot told her to skip him as he wasn’t quite ready, well neither was I, so I hemmed and hawed for a couple second during which the waitress grew visibly annoyed.  So I finally settled on a gyro supreme with a cup of their soup of the day: split pea with ham.

The soup arrived in short order and was pretty good looking.  Split pea soup is one of those things that I didn’t really trust as a kid, and have come to like as an adult, like girls and wearing pants.  This rendition was decent, but a bit too salty.  The consistancy was really good though, not quite a soup but not yet a stew, and had chunks of ham strewn about it like delicious little shipwreck victims.

Next came the gyro supreme.  Actually all three of us ordered gyros, which became a problem.  The waitress, noting each of our orders, one vegetarian, one regular, and one no onions with extra tomatoes, then set down each plate in front of the wrong person, a mistake we did not catch until it was too late for one of our poor group.  One of my friends and I figured that her vegetarian and my meat (ha) had been switched so we switched back, if only we had known that no-one had received the correct plate we might have been able to avoid the tragedy, but alas one of our number was wounded by the presence of onion in his gyro and stricken by the loss of his extra tomato.  We didn’t figure this out until I accidently ate what was probably his gyro .  My friend, who was getting his gyro wrapped up, noted the presence of onions in his gyro and explained what we thought had happen, the waitress did not act like she was very happy about the possibility of having to get another gyro for my friend or have the onions removed, so my friend very graciously offered to just pick off the onions himself and asked for a box.  As a note, it was not our fault that she set the wrong plates in front of the wrong person, but she just seemed angry at life in general so who knows what was wrong.  I really wanted to make a stop action video of us all running around the restaurant switching plates with the Benny Hill music playing in the background, but the bastard wouldn’t give us permission, so that dream died.

The gyro though, was good.  Not great, not bad, but good.  Slices of gyro meat stacked on a warm pita with tomatoes, no onion apparently, shredded iceberg lettuce, feta cheese (the clutch addition for the “gyro supreme”), and tzatziki sauce.  I enjoyed it, though this gyro shared the complant that I’ve had with all gyros, it’s too hard to get all the ingredients in one bite.  The sandwich is too big to fit into your mouth all at once, so you’re forced to either go for the top or bottom.  Well on the top you get all tzatziki, while on the bottom, all you get is meat.  There are about two prime bites of gyro in an entire sandwich, these occur when you’ve whittled away the edges enough to make it possible to score meat and sauce in the same bite, but by then the tomatoes have inevitably fallen out or there is no feta left, either way you never can realize that dream of the perfectly assembled bite.  It is an outcome I will keep fighting for.

All in all besides the service, the meal was nice and comforting, and not too dear.  I walked out with 9.56 less in my pocket and a full belly.  As a waddled to my car with a post-prandial belch brewing in my stomach, which at this point was waving a tiny Greek flag, I knew I would be back, even though this wasn’t anywhere near the greatest meal of my life, it was a good experience for a coney-island, I just hope that someone gives the waitress a hug before we get there next time.

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