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!

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!

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

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.

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!

And you thought Sloppy Joe’s was on Duval!

I knew right away this place was a little different. When we walked up to the front, there were a group of drunk coeds standing under the sign on the sidewalk, (fake breasts threatening to slip out of seriously strained bikini tops), facing the street and trying to chuck pennies up over their heads into the mouth of the big fish on top of the sign. I don’t know the history behind this, but I can only assume it’s a good luck thing. I certainly felt as if my luck was changing!

I’d been here once before for a couple of beers, but had to come back to grab some photos for this post (oh darn). Captain Tony’s is a place like no other, the ceilings and walls (every single available scrap of space) are covered with thousands upon thousands of business cards, panties, license plates, old junk, and bras.. bras, bras, bras.. everywhere you look bras. It’s literally impossible to make out what it all is, there’s so much of it.

Then there’s the tree. A huge old Oak, growing right up through the middle of the floor and out the roof! It’s dark, dingy, and utterly key west through and through.

A rich and infamous history

This is the original location of Sloppy Joe’s Bar, the actual place Hemingway hung out in in the early 1930′s. Sloppy Joe’s was owned by Joe “Josie” Russell. Hemingway immortalized his friendship with Joe in his book To have and have not by using him as the basis for Freddy, the captain of the Queen Conch, and owner of Freddy’s bar.

The building had been many things before Joe Russell bought it in 1933. It was a telegraph station in 1898, after that it was a cigar factory, a bordello, several speakeasies, the county morgue, and an icehouse.

Joe Russell moved his bar out of the building in the middle of the night over a dispute with the landlord, and the building housed a gay bar through the 40′s and early 50′s

Captain Tony bought the bar in 1958 after hitchhiking to Key West from New Jersey on the back of a milk truck.  He’d left NJ to avoid being chased down by mob bookies to whom he’d managed to annoy quite seriously.

During his fantastic life of 92 years, Captain Tony fathered thirteen children by three wives, had been a Charter Boat Captain, a Gun Runner for Cuban mercenaries during the Bay of Pigs, and was elected mayor of Key West in 1989, his campaign slogan being; “All you need in this life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego. Brains don’t mean shit.”

His goal while mayor was to limit growth and to have Key West maintain its reputation as a refuge for eccentrics and renegades. He was quoted by the Chicago Tribune as saying “Key West is an insane asylum. We’re just too lazy to put up walls or fences, I want to retain that mystique.”

Captain Tony passed away in 2008; he’d sold the business almost 20 years earlier, but was still a constant fixture at the bar, and he spent his time signing autographs and visiting with the patrons.

Now HERE was a guy I would have absolutely loved to meet, I’m really sorry I got here a year too late to make that happen. Captain Tony, you sound like my kinda folk!

The Lady in the Blue Dress

I’m still digging for this story, and when I get it figured out, I’ll post it up in the ghosts of Key West section, but for now here’s a quick rundown. Apparently during the time when the building was used as a morgue, that big old tree that now grows through the roof, was the town hanging tree.

A woman who had killed her husband and son was hung from that tree, along with a few other miscreants over the years. When a huge storm hit Key West and demolished the morgue, they found bodies all over the place in the aftermath.

I’ve heard a couple of versions of this, one is that they cremated the bodies and filled glass bottles with the ashes, which they then embedded into the concrete foundations of the rebuilt structure. Another version states the bottles were filled with holy water to keep the restless spirits at bay. It’s hard to find reputable stuff about this online, but sure enough, the bottles are there in the foundation. I’ll keep digging.

The ladies restroom is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of the lady in the blue dress. Christina didn’t see anything in there during her visit, so the Jury is still out!

A good place to hang out

I like Captain Tony’s, it rates right up there with Schooner Wharf for down and dirty local character. There’s usually some sort of live music, and always a lot of interesting folk. It’s a block off Duval so it’s not totally overrun by sweaty sunburnt tourists. And you can hardly pass up the opportunity to run into a ghost in the ladies room!

Check it out!

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!

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.

It’s not much from the outside..

.. but we’d been wanting to hit this place for a while, and because it’s on the other side of US1 in new town it required getting in the car and driving. Well, OK.. it didn’t require driving.. we could have ridden our bikes I suppose, it’s only like a mile and a half away.. but we were in the car anyways because we’d been to the East Martello Museum to visit Robert the Doll. It was just after lunchtime, and hey, it was time for a beer or two.

We wandered in, sat at the bar and ordered up a couple Smithwicks. The young lass behind the bar looked at me strange and asked if we knew each other. Oh oh.. think, think, think… my mind scrambled to recognize her… I got nothing. I told her I was pretty sure we didn’t. She didn’t look convinced. Neither did Christina.

“Where are you from?” she asked. I noticed her irish accent now. “Orlando” I blurted feeling guilty already for whatever it was my doppelganger may have done to her. “Well, we live here now, but originally from Orlando”. She looked at me a little cautiously to see if maybe I was trying to pull one over on her. “Hm, she said, you look just like someone I know. You guys hungry?” She handed us a couple menus and wandered off to take care of a group of folks a little bit down the bar. I have to say that I get this more often than I think I ought to.. Do I really look that much like other people? I certainly don’t think so.. but what do I know.

They have a pretty good menu at Shanna Key, and we’d heard from more than a few people that the food was good. Neither of us was terribly hungry, so we tried to order light. What we really wanted to get were some scotch eggs, but they didn’t offer them. Christina ordered the Smoked Fish Dip, and I ordered the Corned Beef and Swiss sandwich. I’d just made corned beef and cabbage for dinner a couple nights before, and just that morning had used the leftover corned beef and potatoes to make corned beef hash, so I don’t know what possessed me to order corned beef again, but the stomach wants what the stomach wants.

Atmosphere

While waiting for our food, we finished our first beers and ordered up a second round while I checked out the decor. Shanna Key will certainly win no competitions for traditional Irish Pub furnishings. No heavy wood beams on the ceiling, no intricate wood work on or behind the bar, the walls sported no fancy-framed beer mirrors, relying mostly on sports posters to fill the space. Shanna Key calls itself a sports bar, so I guess the posters are de rigueur. Maybe I’m just not familiar with Irish sports bars, are they typically less-decorated than Irish pubs?

In the bar area up front, there are a few large, round, wooden bar-height tables to sit around, Some televisions hanging on the walls, and a few stools and such. There’s a sit-down dining room near the back of the place, I didn’t see anyone in there, but being 2:00 in the afternoon I wouldn’t expect it.

All in all, it’s pretty boring inside as far as the decor goes, so if you’re looking for a traditional dark Irish pub, this isn’t the place for you. What it does have, (and this is based solely on our one visit) is a healthy dose of interesting regulars. One of my favorite haunts back in Orlando; Casey’s on Central was the same way. No gimmicks, no fancy decoration, just good food, cold beer, and interesting conversation. The gentleman sitting next to Christina had just made a batch of home made salsa, and he’d brought a tupperware bowl of it and a bag of tortilla chips in to share with the people at the bar.  Very cool.. and the salsa was good!

Shanna Key is definitely a locals neighborhood sports bar first and foremost. I like it. I can see myself going back often.

The Food

The food was very good. My sandwich was made with shredded corned beef (Not sliced deli processed crap, but real boiled corned beef brisket), melted swiss, and Guinness mustard piled onto a toasted soft hoagie roll. It came with a big pile of yummy french fries. It was very tasty… very.

Christina’s Smoked Fish Dip was superb, and I don’t even like fish. I’m going to have to go back and order up some more food when I’m hungrier to see if everything else stacks up to these initial delights.

I give this bar  3 out of 5 beers, only losing one beer point because it’s really not decorated like an irish pub ought to be, but in all honesty, who the hell cares! The food is great, the beer is cold, and the people are great.. you couldn’t ask for much more. Well except maybe some some strippers, but that’s a story for another time….

If you’ve been to Shanna Key, let s all know what you’re experience was like!

So far this is my all-time favorite bar on the island. Schooner Wharf is the first place we stumbled upon on our very first visit to Key West years ago, and it remained the first stop on all subsequent visits.

It sits right on the marina and is full of a wonderfully eclectic hodge-podge of detritus no doubt scavanged from many a tall ship or reeled in on the end of a fishing line.

It’s a great place to go have a couple of cold beers while waiting for a sunset cruise (and of course after the sunset cruise), do some tourist (or local) watching, and listen to some of the ever-present live entertainment.

I haven’t been to anywhere near even a quarter of the bars in KW yet, so I can’t say for certain, but my guess is this is one of the true local hangouts, and if you want to get a real taste of what life is like in KW, you absolutely must come here and strike up aconversation with one of the old salty dogs sitting around the bar. Locals might look scary sometimes, but my experience has been they’re mostly pretty harmless.

The staff is friendly and quick, and the food is not too shabby. I absolutely LOVE the clam chowder here. Clam chowder is one of those things I order everywhere I go to see who has the best. I can say with certainty that Schooner Wharf has the lead where the chowder is concerned. I don’t know if they make it from scratch or buy it straight from the devil himself, but I wish I could buy it in bulk from them.

Personally Oysters are something I’ve yet to gain an appreciation for, but Christina loves them, as do some of my other friends we’ve brought here. The verdict is super-yummy.

The only issue I’ve ever had with the food has been the last couple times I’ve visited. The fried shrimp was overcooked. I ordered them again the second visit to see if it had been an anomaly the first time, because usually the food is so good. I still believe it was probably a case of someone falling asleep at the fryer, and will give it another shot next time around to decide for good. Barring that small gripe, everything else we’ve had here has been fantastic. Schooner Wharf  is after all a bar, and not a fine dining establishment, so judging by that standard, I’d say the food is better than average.

There is an upstairs ‘poop deck’ that gives a better view of the marina, this is by far my favorite hangout at Schooner Wharf… unless it’s raining. The live music in the courtyard on the ground floor can get a little loud for me sometimes. Of course a trip to the bathroom from here requires a walk down some stairs, so plan accordingly…. nothing more embarrassing than tumbling down some stairs in front of a group of people eating. Trust me.

Speaking of bathrooms. I hear the Women’s restroom isn’t bad (Can’t say for myself), and while I guess the mens room isn’t as bad as many I’ve seen, the journey to reach it is an interesting one.

Also, no visit would be complete without a trip to Frank Everhart’s Magic Bar in the back corner of the ground floor. Frank is a true sleight of hand aficionado.  He’s a very entertaining guy, I highly recommend you spend some time at his bar. He gets there around 9:00 nightly.

Schooner Wharf has a webcam that looks out over the courtyard toward the stage. We spent many an evening in Orlando watching this while we were trying to dream up ways to move to Key West. It was like a little bit of heaven right there in our living room. Check it out, you’ll probably see me sitting at the bar quaffing draft Key West Ale!

Cheers!
Mike