Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Grub Crawl - New Smyrna Beach: Ocean's Seafoods and Yummy Asian Noodle *WA/MT/ID Travel Notes

 I tried these places a week ago during the day. The first is just after the intercoastal bridge on 44. The second is on US1 just north of that bridge.

Ocean's Seafoods - Half fish market and half kitchen. A few tables. Simple menu of seafood (platters or sandwiches), burgers, etc. Been around a long time. I had a grilled grouper sandwich with fries for $13 to go. I ate the fish and some fries and repurposed the bun on a tuna sandwich the next day. Fries were also reused on two further sessions. The grouper was good. Fries could have used a little more time in the fryer. Bun was good. Toppings fresh. Seems like a good call if you want seafood fast with no sit down requirement. Not much on decor. On right side of the road. Selection was good. Pretty busy.

Yummy Asian Noodle - I've passed by a few times and no one was home. I grabbed some Red Curry Sauce with Chicken to go at around three pm. I thought I was getting the $10 lunch special. But, they presumed I wanted the $12 entree (no extras). I let it slide. They said it was a bigger portion. It was big. It came with broccoli, potatoes, onion and carrot. For a Chinese place, it was a good Thai dish. The rice was good too. Broccoli was a little mushy. They have been open for ten months. It was empty. In fact, they were settling down to a nice looking clam dish. They rushed out my meal ahead of their own desires. I tried to glean what region they cook from. It seemed mostly like the same things we are accustomed to. They said "southern" if that means anything. Menu is vast. Pricing in line. Many noodle soups. Some Thai. The place is a small box. Nothing to write home about. 

*Travel Notes - WA/MT/ID: Oddities from WA. MT and ID. Deviled Eggs Potato Salad at Notorious PIG, churro cinnamon ice cream at Crumbl, huckleberry ice cream (that and morels were big MT items) at Big Dipper, turkey and salami sandwich at Wheat Montana in Missoula. Dram Shop and Pearl Cafe were good places. Had a good lobster app and deconstructed (though not called that) boullabaise at Pearl. Had a strawberry milkshake IPA at Dram. Rich Wine's Burgerville in Polson (near Flathead Lake) was an old drive in place that put ham on their cheeseburgers. I had fried steak fingers and fried gizzards (plastic pouches I thought I once liked) at a little country store (Columbia River Country Store) in the middle of a wild fire in Roosevelt WA (on Columbia River). In Vancouver WA at Sushi Mo I had some mediocre and expensive food that included sockeye salmon and yellowtail belly that just seemed like yellowtail. In Anacortes (NW) WA, I had an oddly named Turkey Chest sandwich at Gere-A-Deli. At Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, I had marion berry sorbet at Friday Harbor Ice Cream. No joke. That's a real berry. And no bitch set them up. At Anacortes, I also had those great spot prawns. At Blackrock Seafood. They also sold (the odd things) ling cod, black cod, petrale and dover sole, opilio crab, steelhead, shigoku oysters, albacore pate, salmon pate, and razor clams. I had good bbq at two places in ID. Who knew. Good brisket and great tritip at Cowboy Pit BBQ on the border at some town called Old Town ID. I had shockingly good ribs and black pepper mashed potatoes at Farm House Kitchen in Ponderay ID. In Coeur d'Alene ID, I had a good bagel at Rustic and a Top 50 Burger (USA Today) at Hudson's Hamburgers and Kartoffesalat (potato salad with cucumbers, pickles, bacon and onions) and Kaespatzle (Bavarian cheese sauce and spatzle) at Bier Haus. I saw some interesting decorations at a bar called Craft. They put the whole exhaust system (from muffler forward) on the walls. Honey Eatery had some interesting (kitchen sink) dishes. I had shrimp and grits with sausage and bacon jam with a poached egg. The egg was a new one. They had planked steelhead with lentils and a cucumber yogurt  and stone fruit chutney. Should have gotten that. Breakfast poutine. Mushroom confit. Honey Fried Rice (Jasmine rice with ham, kimchi, pork belly and eggs). Vegetable sunomono. Huitlacoche sour cream. Roasted Corn succotash soup. Honey truffle deviled eggs. Bruleed yougurt parfait. Cocoa dusted potato donuts. Etc. That's about all I can remember.

**Some travel observations from the summer: The airlines are more incompetent than ever. Frontier's computer system went down on one return flight. Three hour delay. Delta canceled a return two days after I booked (missed the email). Cost me a day and had to wake very early. American jerked me around and then canceled a connector because of rain and almost had to cancel a return because of gas tank contamination. I won't go into their horrid CS and how nimble and proactive I had to be not to be stranded for days. I complained to all three airlines. They basically told me "sorry, not sorry". They usually toss me a credit after a little back and forth. All flights were jam packed. Flying whores were super Karens. Rental cars weren't much better. Filthy cars. Limited availability. Many return areas devoid of staff. Line at Denver would have been suicide inducing if I didn't have have fast break. Drive your own vista cruiser if you can. 

***I learned all states (except ours) are counting retests as unique infections. So if you retest positive (a few days into it), they make it seem like it's a new case. Not to mention the other hanky panky that is going on to bilk the system and control the populace.

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Moroccan Breeze, Orlando

I tried this Moroccan food stall in the Apna Bazaar Food Court (right and rear of market) south of the Florida Mall (Sand Lake Rd) on OBT around three weeks ago. They didn't seem ready for customers at noon. Not great for a place that has been open for almost a year. I ordered the wrong thing and it took over a half hour to complete. That left little time to consume it and make my flight. I had to pick at a messy mess in the car with my free hand. While trying to keep my pants clean. I ordered the chicken tagine for $13. The chicken (half) was smallish and mushy (old and/or frozen). The rice was even worse. Seemed old. Dry. And they added some oily liquid to it that seemed like melted margerine. The tomato based sauce was bland. I didn't eat most of it. Tossed it. You could get it with rice or bread. The bread was just a loaf purchased at Publix. I haven't had a ton of Moroccan food, but, I have been there and had some. This was not one of the better meals I've encountered. A big let down considering the effort (three tries) I expending finding out. They also do other tagines. They have a Berber one. Sandwiches of falafel, shwarma, gyros, liver (out of), and other things. Some desserts. Some apps. Couscous. Not many options in this category. They are closed on Monday.

*The sign outside said they had four stalls. One (that may have been Apna Grill) that I thought had Afghani signage was closed. A Chaat Masala one, I didn't see. Maybe in the market? And Five Star South Indian looked intriguing. I tried to try it, but, they kept disappearing in the back. One guy finally started on some dosas up front. They looked good. And some dishes from Kerala may have been a new experience. I don't recall having those. Closed on Monday.

**Travel Teaser: On Whidbey Island WA, I had spotted prawns. So good. Maybe my new final meal. A cross between lobster tail, shrimp and crawfish with an uni and caviar kicker. I'm not sure if they were all female, but, they had that hard red strip female lobsters have. You could reach in the head and pull out a further thin strip of meat and the roe. The tomalley (who knew that's how it is spelled) tasted like uni. A real head sucking experience. I'm a little confused about the roe because one had the eggs all over her legs (on the outside). The prawn has a sharp, pointed peak. They weren't spotted when cooked. Just orange like most shrimp. They cost $20 a pound at a fish market. 

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Sake House, Sanford

This fucking interface just claimed another victim. I wasn't even trying to delete this. I'm not rewriting this in detail. You read it. Near Walmart on Rinehart Rd. Replaces a few failures. Ordinarily prepared Japanese fare from udon to sushi to teriyaki to hibachi. Selection of sake around $10 per bottle. Plus a flight at $10. I had yt, salmon and tuna roll sushi. Only tuna seemed fresh. Tuna was in smaller cigar shaped roll. Rice was pretty well made. Good sign. Pricing is per usual. Open four months. Looked updated inside. Maybe I will try them again if they survive possible (maybe they never wanted to be good) Covid challenges. Quality better be better by then. Ok for a sushi jones. The sake element could put them over the top if they get the food right. Smallish space. Doing dine in and take out. Got take out here at the end of August.