Booze/Food/Coffee

Blue Heaven

729 Thomas St. - (305) 296-8666- http://blueheavenkw.homestead.com

Why did I wait so long…

You gotta love a restaurant with it’s own outdoor shower.

I can’t believe we’ve been in Key West almost a year and have just now gotten to Blue Heaven over on Thomas Street. It’s not like it’s outside of the walking distance circle from my apartment, not like I haven’t heard from a hundred people how really good the food is, nor like it’s overly expensive. I really have no excuse. But let me tell you, I’m an instant convert.

A longtime friend and ex-colleague of mine Kelly came to town the other evening for a quick visit and some dinner before she had to re-enter the real world after a week-long vacation in the lower keys. We had originally intended to take her to Mangia Mangia (one of our favorite food hangouts), but she had honeymooned in Key West 11 years before and remembered really enjoying Blue Heaven, so hey.. why not! I love new things!

I immediately loved this place when I walked in. You enter through a large gate into a wonderfully overgrown and eclectically decorated courtyard. To the right is a cool outdoor bar area complete with a huge rattly-looking wooden cistern looming perilously above the bar, and a stage. I don’t think there’s a white light to be found in the entire place, it’s very colorful. The bar, stage, and surrounding courtyard patios are strewn with little bistro tables, cats, chickens, knick-knacks, and antiques. There’s even a ping pong table. Cool!

We gave our name to the hostess and were told there was about a 20 minute wait. That’s OK, I wanted to wander around and see the bar area and courtyard anyways. We ordered a couple beers at the bar and did some exploring.

One of the things that hit me right off was the music. There was a guy on stage playing guitar and singing… and the volume was low! Good god in heaven, I have come to mecca! One of my biggest pet peeves with live music (especially the lone, singing-guitar-artist type) is that they seem to always have the need to blast it so loud your ears want to jump from your head and run away. I’d like to be able to have a conversation and enjoy myself, and I just can’t do that when someone’s acoustic guitar is ear-fucking me. Too many restaurants and bars don’t get this simple concept. And it’s not like most of these people are brilliant musicians to begin with. Anyways.. I digress.. that’s a good topic for a future post.

There’s an outdoor eating area just off the bar area, and also a smaller indoor area. When we got the nod from the hostess she asked if we wanted to continue to wait for an outdoor table or just sit inside.. hey. I’m no snob.. I can sit inside too! She took us around to the side of the building and in through an old french door into a small quiet dining room. Air conditioning.. ahhhhh.

Time to eat!

We ordered a few more drinks and perused the menu. We were having a really hard time deciding because everything looked so GOOD. We delayed decision-making and ordered the Caribbean BBQ Shrimp appetizer. It was pretty darned tasty, the girls loved it, but I thought it was a bit salty. Of course I’m kind of a salt nazi anyways; it’s definitely not one of my favorite flavors, but I know there are folks out there who dig it.. so the vote on this one is 2 thumbs up out of three.

When it was time to finally order, Christina got the pork tenderloin with sweet potato, mango chutney and curry butter sauce. I ordered the beef tenderloin with cabernet demi-glace, and Kelly ordered one of the specials, some sort of grilled snapper dish.

Woah.. talk about tasty! My filet was very good.. not the best I’ve had, but certainly a far stretch from the worst. It was perhaps a bit on the done side of the medium I’d ordered, but not too far off. The Demi was very good, and they served it all up with a big chunk of corn bread. Very, very tasty. Christina’s pork was out of this world, definitely not a combination I’d have thought of, but it really worked well. I didn’t try Kelly’s salmon because I’m not much of a fish person, but she said it was really good.

So let me just say this

YES! I want to go back! I imagine it’s not so colorful during the day, but I hear the breakfast is out of this world, so I’m definitely going back for some of that. I can also see going to Blue Heaven just to hang out at the bar, have a few beers, and listen to some music with friends.

All in all a very pleasant experience!

Dante’s Key West

955 Caroline Street – 305-953-5123 – www.dantes-keywest.com

One of the Coolest Places in Key West to Hang Out

I can’t say enough good things about Dante’s. Next to Schooner Wharf (which sits just a bit down the marina from Dante’s), this is my favorite bar in Key West.

Imagine this: A large swimming pool, a really cool waterfall, and a statue of a marlin which shoots water into the pool. Pretty cool? Add two tiki bars and a large pool deck with umbrella tables and lounge chairs, a stage where they have live entertainment at night, then add on top of that a fantastic view of the Old Key West marina and you have Dante’s.

My first visit to Dante’s was when I was down on vacation. We sat at the bar and had a drink or two, but were afraid to go in the pool because it kinda looks like it belongs to a hotel or something.. I was afraid we didn’t belong and would get shoo’d out. Well it doesn’t belong to a hotel.. it’s just a big nice pool, that happens to be part of a bar. I love it!

All of this would be enough to keep me going back, but when you add on top of all those great amenities some fantastic food (menu here) and you’re getting pretty close to a perfect situation. Dante’s shares a kitchen with Prime 951 steakhouse, a really fancy resturaunt right next door, so you know right off there’s good food comin’ outta there!

I haven’t had a lot of stuff off the menu because I just can’t seem to get past the Nachos. They are hands down the best nacho’s I’ve ever had, and the plate is so big you can feed 3 or 4 people off of it. People I’ve been with have ordered the sandwiches and burgers, I didn’t sample any of them, but I can tell you they are huge, and judging by how fast they disappear, and the yummy sounds coming from the devourers, they must be good.

Dante’s is the place that during Fantasy Fest had the stripper pole on a platform in the middle of the pool, and held a pole dancing competition. Good times!

There are always a good group of locals and touristas alike smattered throughout the two bars, the bartenders are super friendly, and they drink prices won’t kill you. When the weather is warm, which is most of the time, the pool deck is crowded with oiled bodies sipping frozen drinks and soaking up the rays.

You can usually find Magic Frank here as well an hour or so before his show over at Schooner Wharf, relaxing and chit chatting with the folks at the bar.

Dante’s is definitely one of those bars that draws the locals to it as well as the tourists. Most of the folks I’m friends with here don’t have access to a swimming pool where they live, and when it gets really hot out, you just gotta get into the water. Dante’s is where everyone goes to relax and cool off during the day. When the sun goes down, it’s only a few stumbles to Schooner Wharf  for the late evening crowd.

Check it out! It’ll be love at first dip!

Help Yourself Restaurant and Laundromat.

Someone Has to Do It

Last Saturday during the weekend of the second lowest ever recorded temperature in Key West (42), we had laundry to do.

Our little apartment has no washer and dryer, so we have to make a run to the laundromat every week or so. We used to go to the Hilltop Laundromat which is just a couple blocks away, but the rising ratio of busted to working washing machines and dryers forced us to try a new place, and by virtue of being the next closest laundromat to us, Help Yourself Foods was the place! Hey, food and laundry! What a combination! The only way that situation could any get better is if there were a place that had a bar attached to the Laundromat. Hmmm.. I think I may be onto something…

Anyways, saturday morning Christina and I sat shivering in the living room, bundled up in whatever we could find, each waiting for the other to give the signal that we were ready to go out into the 50 degree tundra to the open air building that housed the Laundromat next to Help Yourself Foods. After a bit of grumbling and a stiff shot of Jameson’s, we headed out.

Yeah, it was cold. Like all the other structures in Key West, this one was built to keep you cool, not warm. We stood near the running dryers trying to soak up any ambient heat we could. At least 90 percent of the washers and dryers were in working order.. always a good thing. A much better ratio than our old laundromat. The clientele, however different from the steno bums in the last place, still manage to excite amusement; it seems we had traded wharf rats for hippies!

Help Yourself Foods serves grazing foods (read grasses and nuts), organic veggie wraps, salads, and smoothies and the ubiquitous granola-cruncher staple Chai Latte. (Menu Here) And like any good hippy-organic-food-restaurant/laundromat should, they had a singing, guitar-playing love child on a stool out front, perhaps to help somnabulize the patrons into denial over the cold weather. You couldn’t see her.. she was bundled up in so many puffy jackets and scarves she could hardly hold her guitar, let alone a tune in that cold weather. I truly felt sorry for her, but then realized she was probably a vegan, and deserved it. Hehehe.

Ok, I’m not going to vegan-bash here. Some of my best friends are health-food nuts. I just haven’t broadened my horizons to spending that much time and money on eating food that inherently tastes bad. Hey, if it doesn’t have steak in it, I aint eatin’ it! If we weren’t meant to eat animals, they wouldn’t be made out of meat! But enough about that. I did have one of their smoothies, the ‘Happy monkey’ with bananas and peanut butter … it was damned tasty, and I can’t lie.. the menu has a lot of interesting stuff on it. I’m going to have to try some more of it next time.

I don’t know if they always have live entertainment, or if it’s just a weekend thing, or just a cold weather thing for that matter.. there wasn’t anyone singing the first time we went, but that was during the week. I think we’ll go back a few more times before trying another place. The washers and dryers work well, but quite honestly the people freak me out a little bit. I guess I’d rather hang with wharf-rats than health-food nuts.

All in all two thumbs up.. working laundry machines and good (for you) food… but I reserve the right to keep looking for the perfect laundry situation.. I know.. a pipe dream to be sure, but hey, that’s what got us to Key West in the first place!

Oh, and if you were wondering, that photo there of the sandals and the one above it are from our first trip there.. two weeks earlier when it was warm! The head in the dryer photo is me trying to re-cycle left over dryer heat last weekend.. see I’m green!

Graze on!
Mike

Eggnog of the GODS

Hey, it’s christmas…. and I’m feeling generous (or drunk)

This recipe was given to me by a co-worker at my last job. She grew up in Okeechobee, and the pastor at her church made this every year. It became a hard and fast tradition at our office, and when she left to go work somewhere else, she passed the recipe to me so the tradition would live on. I made it for christmas every year after that, but then I got laid off, and then that company got bought out by a big corporation, children screamed and dogs and cats were living together, so no more eggnog for them!

Learn from their mistakes…. drink the NOG

Father Luc’s Eggnog of the Saints as interpreted by theMike

Makes about a gallon and a half

12 eggs, separated

3 quarts heavy cream

2 cups Rum & 2 cups Brandy mixed together (I use Mount Gay rum and E&J brandy)

1.5 cups of cane sugar (you can use regular sugar if you’re a wanker)

whole nutmeg

I have a big kitchenaid mixer and it makes all this much easier, but you can do it with a hand mixer if you must, just drink more rum, it’ll make the time go by faster.

Beat egg whites until stiff (like merangue) – set aside

Drink some rum

Beat yolks till mixed well, then add 1 cup of booze mixtue SLOWLY while mixing on high, or the alcohol will cook the eggs – set aside

Drink some rum

Whip the cream 1/2 quart at a time until stiff, then pour in some of the sugar, and some of the rum/brandy. Whip until well mixed. Put this into a container large enough to hold about a gallon and a half, and repeat these steps until all the ingredients are used up. Then mix in the egg whites and yolks.

Drink some rum

Grate some fresh nutmeg on top and get snockered.

Rinse, repeat.

Jack Flats

509 Duval St – (305) 294-7955 – www.jackflats.com/

2nd Gator Football game of the season = trying out another sports bar!

After our trip to The Sports Page last weekend, we were looking for another sports bar to compare it to, so we decided this time we were going to try out Jack Flats on Duval St.

We wandered in about noon and bellied up to the bar. The walls inside were completely covered with projection screens.. this place means business! I ordered a draft blue moon, and christina ordered a bloody mary. The bloody mary was really good, and the blue moon was no slouch. Fresh beer.. a good sign!

We ordered some nachos for an appetizer while we waited for the game to start. There were a couple of big College games on that day so the place was busy, but not obnoxiously so, there were only two bartenders, but those girls were on top of their game.. and much cuter than the dudes at Sports Page.

Not Yo Cheese!

The nachos were pretty darned good, I’d definitely get them again. They fry their own chips there, so they were nice and crispy, and had that yummy flavor you just can’t get with bagged chips. They were smothered with beans, chili, cheese, sour cream, and some lettuce. Tasty.

I stuck with the blue moon throughout the game, but Christina switched it down to Bud Light. (UG), but you know.. who am I to tell someone what to drink, and it was a buck cheaper than the Blue Moon, which was 4.50, average Duval prices. We didn’t ask about a local discount, which most bars have here.. I guess we just didn’t think about it.

The couple sitting next to us at the bar were on their honeymoon, and they were Gator fans too, but weren’t terribly interested in chit chatting, so we let them be. They ordered a few pitchers, and a pizza app which looked really good. I wanted to get a picture of it, but I thought they might think I was wierd, taking photos of their food..

The booth behind us was full of a group of older dudes in full Gator regalia.. banner on the table and all. They had a little boom box with them, and every time the Gators scored (Which was ALOT), one of them would cue up the Gator theme song, and walk up and down the length of the bar with the boom box up in the air a la John Cusack.. hahaha.. good times. Lots of Gator chompin’ going on that day!

The televisions (projectors) were all bright and in focus, and the sound system was in good shape. No distortion here. Near as I could tell they picked a game from each section of the bar and played the sound from that program in that section. They had remote speaker boxes at the bar so you could dial in your favorite game if you couldn’t hear the game you wanted on the main system.

Time for some real food

I ordered a Cuban Mix sandwich, and Christina ordered wings medium. Funny thing, here in Key West, I notice they call it a ‘Cuban Mix’, but everywhere else I’ve been it’s just called a ‘Cuban’. I wonder what – if anything – is the difference. Anyone know?

When the food arrived, I immediately snagged a wing off Christina’s plate. It was really good, more spicy than the kinda bland wings we got at The Sports Page. My Cuban was VERY good, perhaps one of the best I’ve had so far. Of course Key West is much closer to Cuba than Orlando, so that’s to be expected.

It had the usual ingredients – ham, roasted pork, pickles, mustard, swiss cheese, and even bacon! Christina’s eyes lit up when she noticed that.. I had to fend her off by feeding her some french fries, which were also quite good, no funky tasting spices here.. just normal french fries.

This is the first Cuban sandwich I’ve had here in KW, so I can’t compare it to other local restaurants, but I look forward to hunting out the best Cuban down here.

And the score is!

I have to say, that as much as we liked The Sports Page last weekend, I’m going to have to say we both enjoyed Jack Flats more, and plan to go back next weekend for the coming Gator game.

I wish I had the kind of money it would take to really give places I wasn’t blown away with multiple chances, but eating out is expensive around here, and currently I’m a big fat burden on society, so Christina is our only source of expendable income. Hopefully that situation will cease to be an issue soon! There has to be some job I’m qualified to do down here.

I went to Jack Flats’ website, and it was down. What is it with web sites for businesses in this town?? It costs like 8 bucks a month to host a website, surely they can afford that. But hey, I have to give them props for even having a real website, unlike Sports Page which uses facebook. I know, I know.. it’s Key West.. who cares!

Jack Flats.. a fun place to go watch games, eat good food, drink good beer, and get good service.. check it out!

Peace!