http://www.ribfest.org/

November 11th, 12th, & 13th, 2011
22 Years of “ROCKIN’ RIBS – HELPIN’ KIDS”
Vinoy Park, 701 Bayshore Drive NE, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
Gates open at 11 AM daily – No Re-entry

Day of Show at Gate
$20.00
Active Military and family, with ID, No Charge at Gate

Some quick notes about the ribs

(Notes made by Matt on his phone, probably should have just brought a notepad.. but whatever. Also these are as is, as they were taken throughout the day)

Willimgham’s (http://www.willinghams.com/): ribs arent fall off bone but tender but moist. The rub is the winner very spicy. Spicy sauce is strong so is sweet.

Big Boned BBQ Co (http://bigbonedbarbeque.com/): tender and moist don’t taste rub. Habanero sauce stood out.

J&j barbeque (http://www.jjbbqtogo.com/): got an extra rib! Vinegar heavy sauce, meat is best thus far, so juicy, very tender, reminds Phil of Michaels. Best meat so far, but mild sauce was far too vinegary, hot was good.

Camp 31 (http://www.camp31.com/): apparently defending champions, not sure of this or something else. Most expensive so far at $9 but got roughly 5 ribs. As tender as 1st vendor but juicy unlike 1st. Comes with sauce painted on, no additional sauce available but that’s kinda nice. Sweet tea good not cloying. Refills are $1 on the $2 orig cost, so that’s good.

AUSSOM AUSSIE (http://www.aussomaussie.com/): different look to the vendor, also has aussie accent, not sure if real as I didn’t hear him say fuck or cunt once… but maybe that’s for appearances for my american brethren. Got shrimp on stick. Nothing to call home about, don’t get skrimps here.

Carolina Rib King, Spartanburg, SC (http://www.carolinaribking.com/): best rib so far. Great slow heat in the sauce.

Texas outlaws (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Texas-Outlaw-BBQ/171154736239282): pretty girls at counter and painting ribs. Good, sauce like Michaels… but the meat not as tender.

Thoughts about Ribfest

So, we ended up seeing some signs around town for something called Ribfest.  I love some good bbq, so obviously I went home and shared the news of some sort of festival for delicious meats with the roommates.  Looked up the information online about the shindig. We were all enthused about the prospect of a lot of different ribs. Unfortunately one of the roommates was heading out of town to visit a friend of ours in Cleveland.  His loss.

The one downside is the car ride across the bay.  I don’t know what it is about living in Tampa or St. Pete but it seems like everyone I talk to is loathe to cross the bay for events and stuff.  It’s only a 30 minute or so car ride, but the bridges make it seem like it’s longer than that. Anyways, we knew we had to brave a 30 minute car ride for the prospect of ribs.

Expensive. I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap going into it but if you’re looking to sample a wide variety of ribs you will spend a pretty penny. Three of us went, and it was $20/each at the gate to get in. So that was $60 to start the day. Three bones were typically $7, so we hit up 7 different vendors and had ribs from 6 of them. The clear winner of the day was Carolina Rib King http://www.carolinaribking.com/. Even after being stuffed, they easily had the tastiest sauce and best texture for ribs.  While I realize that what people want out of BBQ is variable, for me they were perfect.  Tender, but still texture.  A little kick in the sauce and not too smoky.

If I went again in the future I would definitely buy my ticket ahead of time. Preorder tickets were $10 or $13 or something, not too steep if you know you’re going.  If you were looking to be there for a while/stick around for the concert stuff I’d suggest bringing some chairs and a blanket for the ground.  The sound was kind of ridiculously loud, so if you’re really into your classic rock cover bands move right up to the speakers.. otherwise you might want to keep some distance.

It was a lot more county fair like than I expected, some activities for kids and a little car show with some bitchin’ restored/maintained old cars and trucks.  Overall not a bad day.

The day was pretty fun walking around and people watching. The ribs ranged from Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars stars to Rating: 5 out of 5 stars stars for the Carolina Rib King.

Some life updates that may not have been reflected on HalfTon:
1. My twin brother Dan got hired by my company and he moved to Tampa.
2. I was able to get one of my best friends Jake hired at our company.
3. Another one of my best friends, Phil, moved down to Tampa to check something new out for a while.

The four of us share a house north of downtown Tampa, about 5 minutes from Ybor. Our proximity to Ybor usually defaults us to visiting there (read: The Bricks) on the weekends. The past couple of weeks we have developed an informal ‘morning after Ybor’-ritual which usually involves going out with Phil so he can buy smokes and we all grab some RockStar Recovery Drinks and then we head out to Guitar Center. Through my ineptitude last weekend I had purchased the wrong heads for drums, so this weekend we repeated our little ritual.

As you can see, I wised up and just took the old heads off so that I can accurately match up what I needed to purchase. We purchased our musical necessities, but man can only be sustained on liquid energy drank for so long. Dan was interested in eating at a new joint so he commandeered Phil’s phone to use Yelp to plot our next steps. He found a 4 and a half star restaurant, which is fairly amazing on Yelp so off we went. Side note, we tried to get our roommate Jake to join us, but due to his inability to EVER answer his phone he missed out on the best meal we’ve had in Tampa.

I may have laid this out before, but it’s fairly difficult to write about excellent food. Eating at La Pequena was one of those times. The service we received was fast, friendly and very helpful without smothering us. At no point were we waiting on the wait staff to fulfill our requests. After having had a very poor service experience the past evening at another Tampa restaurant, La Pequena stood out for its competency and extremely high level of service.

On the recommendation of the Yelp information, Dan ended up ordering the Bandeja Montañera, aka ‘The Country Platter’, which comes with Grilled Steak (or ground beef), Pork Skin, Sausage, Red Beans, Rice, Eggs, Sweet Plantains, Corn Cake and a Salad. Clearly this is a meal that you have be packing an appetite to order.  Phil and I opted to order the Bistec A Caballo which comes with Stewed Beef, Rice, Red Beans, Potato, Cassava, and Egg.

The red beans and rice showed up first, and frankly there was enough right there to make a meal. Phil and I started digging in as we had all been brewing a mean hunger. Shortly thereafter our main dishes came out.

The portions provided would make a lumberjack hesitate.  There is enough food per meal to leave you full for the remainder of the day. The stewed beef was fantastic, the acidity of the tomato base and the starchiness of the potato and cassava complimented each other very well. The eggs on top of the platter were like the cherry on top of a sundae… unnecessary but totally delicious. My meal was outstanding but I think the real items that shone were on Dan’s plate.  The thin-cut, hand tenderized steak was just that, tender. The steak was perfectly seasoned with salt and pepper, and the grill flavor on it was impeccable. The sausage was the other item that blew me away. From what I could tell it had a natural casing and was filled with high quality meat and filling. I have no idea what was in there, but I do know it was the best sausage I’ve ever had. The one surprise on the table was the pork skin.  I didn’t know what to expect, but in hindsight I should’ve expected good things as everything we had today was the best we’d had of its kind. If you dig on swine, you should definitely give it a shot.

One thing we had noticed upon entering was the bakery. Well, that and some of the pretty patrons and pretty girls who were working there.  They offer fresh baked breads, sweets, and pastries.  As Jake wasn’t able to join us we purchased a loaf of 3 cheese bread that had literally just come out of the oven and an apple turnover.  The bread was so good that as soon as it got home it was demolished.

This was one of those rare experiences where you try something new out of the blue and you are absolutely blown away. If you haven’t had the pleasure of being completely surprised with the excellence of something, you’re missing out. I don’t know that there is a way to cultivate having these experiences other than trying something new and avoid coming into that experience with a preconception of how your experience will be.  The only thing I can relate to this was seeing The Matrix for the first time.  Dan and I were in 9th grade, and we went with our parents to see it on opening day. There wasn’t a lot of advertising surrounding it. We knew of the movie but frankly had no idea of what it would be about other than it would have a base in science fiction. The graphics, the plot, the music, the acting (this was the perfect role for Keanu Reeves. Whoever his agent is, is brilliant) and each aspect of the movie hit on all cylinders. We walked in with virtually no expectations, and left raving. Minus the science fiction, we walked into La Pequena and left with that same Matrix-esque experience.

La Pequena deserved and received a Rating: 5 out of 5 stars. I recommend this to anyone with an appetite. It’s just too bad Jake (and any of you who read this) didn’t get to experience this with us.

-Matt in Tampa

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

Even if you’re never forced to exit stage left by toque-wearing hordes, one of the downsides of inheriting the vocation that de La Reynière invented is that it makes your friends hesitate before inviting you over for dinner. ”Well,” they sigh with a mixture of apology and exasperation, “it’s not like the food you’re used to.”

Little do they know that after the second goat-cheese crème brulée, the third ahi-shiso tuna tower with wasabi foam, the fourth porcini-dusted scallop with padron-pepper beurre blanc, and the fifth “deconstructed” s’more, a baked potato with a little butter and salt can seem like one of humanity’s most ingenious inventions.

You eventually realize that the only secret ingredient that matters is paying attention to what you’re eating — and a dash of gratitude.

http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/01/19/the-meal-that-ended-my-career-as-a-restaurant-critic/ via Boing Boing

On the good advice of my coworker Derrick my family ventured out to Westchase to try Burger 21 on a sunny Tampa afternoon.  My first impression upon walking in was that Burger 21 was going for a classy-‘Five Guys Burgers.’  There is a roped off queue to wait in if the restaurant happens to be that busy.  In the queue there are copies of the menu.  After my initial perusal I was surprised to find very reasonable prices (burgers started around $5) despite having many colorful samich choices.

When ordering you step up to a fast food style Register, spit your order and take a seat.  Before you take your rest while waiting for your grub, they hand you a number that you place into a metal stand so that the servers can steer your eats to the right table. Derrick advised us that we had to try the milkshakes, so the milkshakes we tried.  Dan and I split a strawberry milkshake and my parents ordered a chocolate peanut butter shake. I ended up ordering a Shrimp Burger Po’Boy and Dan ordered the Black and Bleu Slider 4 Pack.  While biding my time for the food I decided to use the head.  Below you can see some pics of their clean bathrooms:

On the way back I saw that they have a number of dipping sauces you can choose from. I took the Thai Ketchup, the Ragin’ Cajun, and the Chipotle Mayo. (The Ragin’ Cajun and Chipotle Mayo were virtually indistinguishable from each other.  I also wished the Thai Ketchup had some more kick to it.)

When I came back the shakes had arrived. The strawberry shake was delicious.  I could probably just eat one of those for a meal.  I tried my Mom’s chocolate peanut butter shake and it caused me to reconsider the shake I had chosen.  If you like Hershey’s Peanut Butter Cups then you need to give that shake a shot.

Above you can see my Mom pulling off a good suburban cowboy impression.  I don’t think anyone can wear a jean jacket with a red-colored scarf without pulling this comparison.  Any cigarette smokers out there?  If so, you should snap a picture wearing a jean jacket and a red scarf, smoking a cigarette (if you have a cowboy hat that would be great) and I will post it on the site.

My Dad ordered the above burger.  I don’t have any insight into how it tasted but it looked quite edible.

Dan and I split the Po’Boy and the Sliders.  Anyone familiar with Fish Sticks should find the Shrimp Po’Boy in good standing, although it is far more refined in its execution.  The sautéed veggies and the sauce complimented the Po’Boy very well.  One thing to note, this really isn’t a Po’Boy. A traditional Po’Boy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po’_boy) comes in a sub/hoagie bun and is usually loaded with lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, a pickle, and fried fish or shrimp. I’ve never really seen Po’Boys offered in Michigan restaurants which is frankly a shame.  Despite the Shrimp Po’Boy not really being a Po’Boy, it was still delicious.

 The Black and Bleu sliders really stood out to me.  They did a great job of getting the salt worked well into the burgers, but the they used a Bleu Cheese dressing and not actual crumbled Bleu Cheese. I would gladly order these again.  Dan ordered a side of fries which, to use my mother’s words, ‘were very fresh.’  These were virtually shoe-string fries and they were well made. 

Burger 21 had a solid atmosphere and served up some good food.  Considering I ate the food in great company the experience earned a Rating: 4 out of 5 stars . 

3 Cheers,

Matt in Tampa