Archive for September, 2009

The Sports Page Key West

610 Greene St – 305-296-3230 - www.myspace.com/thesportspagekw

College Football Season Begins!

And when that happens, it’s time to search out a favorite sports bar to catch the Gator games. Now I have to come clean here, I’m not a huge sports fan, but Christina is a dyed in the wool Gator, so I find myself a fan by association. We had a favorite haunt in Orlando to go watch the games, but that’s a long way to drive for a football game, so we vetted our first sports bar here in Key West last Saturday; The Sports Page on Greene street.

We walked into the Sports Page about 6:30 Saturday and bellied up to the bar. The first thing I noticed was that it felt like any good sports bar should, crowded, lots of big screen TVs, a few projection screen TV’s, a pool table, lots of pennants, neon beer signs, and cheerleader photos.. So far so good!

It was an interesting transition from the atmosphere of Key West to inside of the Sports Page, I wasn’t expecting it to be such a typical sports bar, but it almost felt like we were sitting in Orlando or anywhere else enjoying the game. I appreciated the familiarity of it, it made me feel comfortable right away.

Time for some beer!

There were two bartenders working the bar that night, Robert and um… someone else. (God I’m bad with names) They were both very good, and handled the entire place very efficiently. It’s a pretty big place so that’s no small feat.

We ordered a couple of Blue Moons. Supposedly they have 2 for 1 happy hour between 4 and 8, but we didn’t get any of that.. oh oh.. strike one. We ordered up some cheese sticks to get us rolling, and settled in. I switched to Key West ale for my second beer.. love that Key West Ale! The draft was cold and fresh.. bad draft is one of my big peaves, so I’ll give points for that!

The beers were pretty expensive, 4.50 I think for the KW Ale, and the Blue Moons were about 4.75 – about average I guess for Duval area beers. (I could be off on this – man, I make a horrible restaurant critic, I can’t even remember exact prices!) Their myspace web page states that they have incredible prices.. um yeah.. incredibly high! Maybe they’re trying to make enough money to get a real website.

They don’t have pitchers, but they do offer buckets, and I’ve recently learned that they offer 2 dollar Bud Light drafts, so if you can stomach that crap, you’re in luck. Maybe that’s the incredible pricing they speak of. But hey, not hatin’, I understand it’s expensive to run a business downtown Key West. If the prices were out of line, it sure didn’t show in attendance, the place was packed.

Bring me a bucket..

I’d done a little bit of research online before heading in, and read good reviews about the food so I had pretty high expectations.

The cheese sticks arrived in a basket with a cool newspaper-looking liner, and they were very good as far as cheese sticks go.. and before you say it’s hard to fuck up cheese sticks, let me tell you that I’ve had many a basket of total shit cheese sticks, overcooked, greasy, undercooked, you name it. I’ve even had an entire basket of them that somehow, magically, all the cheese was gone out of them, like they sprung a leak in the fryer and the cheese escaped.

I’d read in one review online that the ‘cleveland paninis’ were to die for, so I looked for those on the menu. I noticed they had a cheesesteak version.. oh yeah, I want to go to there! Christina ordered a basket of chicken wings medium. Alright! Food is ordered, time for a couple more beers while we wait.

We were sitting right by the service bar so I had a front row seat to all the food coming out of the kitchen, and I saw some very delectable delights pass me by.. one in particular had to be a calzone of some sort, I almost snagged that sucker as it sat there waiting for Robert to take it to it’s rightful owner. Next time I’m getting that!

After a little while the food arrived in some more baskets with the cool newsprint. The wings were big and juicy looking, and my panini looked really good! I immediately stole one of Christina’s wings.. hey, it’s the price she has to pay. It was cooked perfectly, but it definitely wasn’t what I’d consider medium.. the sauce for sure could have used used some help from Emeril. All in all a good wing, but quite bland. If this was medium, I wonder what the mild tastes like.

My Panini was piled high with sliced, tender roast beef, coleslaw, tomatoes, melted swiss, and french fries! On the sandwich! How odd. It looked fabulous.

If only it had tasted as good as it looked. Where the wings were under-flavored, the panini cheese steak was over-flavored. You know that salty red shit they pour on ‘spicy’ french fries? I don’t know exactly what it is, it’s like Mrs. Dash or something.. well it was on the fries, and all over the roast beef too. I did some surgery and removed the fries from the sandwich, but the flavor was overpowering. I mean, you have all these yummy flavorful things already on there.. why smother it with all that salty crap. Now, I realize this is just me, I don’t like spicy fries to begin with – other people may love it, but it’s definitely not my bag. I could tell that the sandwich surely was cooked well, the meat was tender, the focaccia bread was crunchy, it had so much potential! ARGH! I won’t let this stop me from going back though, the other things I saw flying past me on the bar looked really really good. And there’s always room for more food in my life.

Maybe I’m an audio snob, but come on..

Being someone who’s built a good deal of loudspeakers, and set up some pretty complex audio systems, I’m probably a bit of a gear-snob. That being said, I don’t think I’m too far off base by saying their sound system in this place sucks. There are a few small loudspeakers hung around the room, and they are driven far past their acceptable capacity. Actually the larger problem is the input gain to the amps from the television is waaaaay to high, in effect creating a situation where the amplifiers are outputting a distorted signal into the poor speakers, which themselves are too small for the room they are in.  That signal had no chance man, it was hamstrung out of the gate. Probably something that a bit of tweaking by someone who knew what they were doing would fix. This could be something that just was happening that night, I won’t know until a couple more visits.

All in all, I really can’t complain too much, the place is warm and inviting, the service is good, the bartenders are friendly and efficient, the crowd was fun, the beer was cold, and the food didn’t kill us. What else could you want from a sports bar. I’m holding off on final judgement on the food until I have some more of it. I’ve read nothing but good reviews from other people, so there has to be something to that.

I’ll have to hit the other sports bar down on this end of town, Jack Flats and see what the comparison is..

OK.. 4:30.. happy hour time here.. Cheers!

Only three weeks in and already receiving Fan Art!

Well OK, that may be a stretch

My good friend Jeff up in Orlando made up this little ditty for us to help keep us on track with the sailboat dream. Jeff you rule! Miss you man!

Things more likely to happen in Key West Part 1

It all started out innocently enough

Yesterday afternoon Christina and I mixed up a couple of roadies and walked over to Duval St. to do some window shopping and watch all the tourists stumble around. We’re only a block away, but it when we get there, it feels like a different city. It’s amazing the difference between the ‘Duval Key West’, and the ‘Not-Duval Key West’. It was Labor Day weekend (Well technically still is as I write this), so the island was abuzz with people down for a long weekend vacation, and we figured we go get our share of entertainment.

Christina was looking for inspiration and costume parts for her halloween outfit, so we weren’t completely aimless in our journey. The costume she’s trying to come up with is ‘Blind Mag’, a character from Repo, the Genetic Opera. I doubt most of you have seen it, it’s kind of a the Rocky Horror of this decade. Anyways, Blind Mag has these bitchin’ goth outfits, so I suggested hitting the Leather Master store right off duval on a little side street.

I knew before we even went there that it was probably the real deal as far as fetish leather shops go, but I’m not afraid of that stuff, so in we went. Yikes! I’ve been into one adult sex store in my life, Fairvilla up in Orlando, and I thought I’d seen it all… Well apparently not!

My eyes!

I won’t get too graphic here, but if you can imagine the largest scariest dildo in the world, then drop acid for a month while watching David Cronenberg films in a dark room, and then imagine that dildo again, you might get close to some of the things we saw!

Anyway, I’m impressed, and scared, and mentally scarred, but still OK with it.. haha. As long as no one approaches MY ass with one of those things, we’ll all be copacetic, savvy? Live and let live I always say.

The leather room was less shocking, and closer to what we were looking for. They had all sorts of cool hand made leather kilts, bras, pants, shorts, harnesses, whips, cuffs… you get the idea. Christina did find a sweet corset that would work if only it was all black instead of leopard print.. spray paint perhaps. Unfortunately it was pretty expensive.. in fact all the stuff was, the leather gladiator kilts ran around 300 bucks! But to be fair, they were very well made.. and likely to offer years of reliable service when you get that job as a Gladiator Stripper.

And then…

We wandered by the counter and I heard.. ‘hey! I recognize you!’ coming from the back of the shop where a big burley guy was crimping steel studs into a large scary looking piece of black leather. I looked around me nervously, wondering who this guy was talking to.. Christina looked at me like she was about to learn something really scary, and I looked back at him, speechless, worried, and still convinced that I’d been mistaken for someone else yet again.

“you know, From the pharmacy!” Oh crap, it sunk in.. this guy was my Pharmacist! HAHA. I recognized him finally. If he’d been wearing the white smock I’d have gotten it right away. I guess fetish leather craft and pharmacology go hand in hand.. as if there was ever any doubt.

Only in Key West!

If you’re looking for some serious Leather pants, rubber skirts, fetish toys, dildos, videos, testicle cuffs, fantasy fest costumes,anal enema kits, ass trainers, or anything of that nature, I highly recommend a trip to Leather Master.. I have a feeling we’ll be back in there before halloween comes…

Coffee Plantation

713 Caroline Street – 305-295-9808 – www.coffeeplantationkeywest.com/

Ahh heavenly coffee, the third member in the holy trinity of vices

The priority is as follows: booze-to-the-food-to-the-coffee. (Notice that food is sandwiched in there like the creamy filling of an Oreo cookie, it’s a necessary part of the equation.)

Occasionally you can get away with combining the booze and the coffee – Irish coffee for example, but traditionally nothing brings home the warm fuzzies the day after like a good strong cup of joe. And for me, the best kind of coffee is caffe mocha, like a gallon of it. Injected right into my veins.

Now, I’m not a Starbucks hater, and historically when given a choice I’d hit the Starbucks over the mom and pop show just because I knew what I’d be getting. I guess when it comes to my coffee I don’t like to be surprised. But since moving to Key West and deciding to search for a life of freedom from ‘the man’, I’m opening up to the understanding that things can be better on the other side. Way better.

Coffee Plantation sits on caroline Street, just stumbling distance from Schooner Wharf and the Historic Key West Marina. It’s housed in a cool old Conch house built in the 1890′s. The porch holds a few comfy wicker chairs and tables. The inside is very inviting.. the smell of coffee.. sweet, sweet  coffee, lots of cool old antiques sitting on cool old tables, chairs, and couches.

There’s a back corner where they have some computers set up to rent for 20 cents a minute. You can also bring in your own laptop and the wireless is free with any purchase. I could definitely see myself sitting in here quaffing gallons of coffee blogging my day away.

All of this coolness would be for naught if the coffee wasn’t great. And it is.. it’s it’s nice and strong.  Not Cuban strong, but respectably strong nonetheless. Christina got a normal coffee and commented that it was better than a couple of the other coffee shops in town – that it wasn’t quite as strong. She doesn’t like super strong coffee like I do, but I thought the coffee here seemed just right. I’m going to have to check out those other places now to see how strong is too strong!

My Caffe Mocha was super yummy, perhaps a tad on the sweet side for me, but I’m sure that’s something I can rectify next time with a request for a bit less syrup.

We tried sitting out on the porch, but the morning sun was careening right out of outer space, and burning holes in my retinas, so we moved our operation inside.

We situated ourselves on a couple of comfy wicker chairs, and commenced chugging. There are all sorts of books and newspapers lying about to thumb through, and the walls are covered in knick-knacks and local art. The furniture is eclectic and comfy, the clientele is kitschy blend of locals and touristas.

Christina ordered a strawberry croissant, it looked really good, and judging by the way she guarded it from me, it was. There’s quite a selection of yummy-looking breakfast munchies at the counter; croissants, muffins, fruit parfaits, etc. And they sell bags of their fabulous coffee and some implements of coffee construction as well.

All in all I love it. I look forward to heading back and quaffing more of the yummy coffee! Visit the Coffee Plantation website for more info, and some amusing and interesting blog posts from the owners. They sound like an interesting bunch, I look forward to running into them some day.

Fort Jefferson and Dry Tortugas National Park Photos

Some more photos of Fort Jefferson and Dry Tortugas National Park

FortJefferson (62 photos)
12 August 2006

Note: To see the pictures in the original Picasa album, click here