Coffee Wars

My favorite Chinese restaurant has changed hands and a new arrival in town is operating Tong's Garden on Kennedy Drive. So far the only change is that the person answering the phone is now bright and cheerful which is a pleasant change. More importantly Cuban coffee on White Street is no longer dominated by Sandy's. The formerly 24-hour joint at Virginia Street is being challeneged by Key West's Best Coffee In Town.   

So I went and tried the best coffee in town and got myself a basic breakfast sandwich on Cuban bread which is how I test these places in town. And there are quite a few Cuban coffee places when you really start looking. Sandy's was the only one open 24 hours and under new ownership that has ended which in some way changes the perspective. I liked the coffee and the bacon egg and cheese sandwich from the Best Coffee In Town and they make no pretence of being open all night as they close at four. They are just a couple of blocks down the street, south from Sandy's and  make a worthy competetion. 

Unlike Sandy's the Best Coffee In Town has no seating so I walked across United Street and found myself an empty bench next to the new and newly occupied City Hall. The tiger is back in place at the corner of the street. It used to be the mascot for the school that was in this spot and a welding class built it. Now it has been refurbished and put back in place.  

This being the idiotic town it sometimes is there were -can you believe it? - complaints about the tiger being parked back in its spot infront of the new city hall, which itself has generated complaints too. The tiger it was said is too aggressive and not attractive and might frighten off visitors. I can't make this nonsense up. People actually wrote that kind of sentiment which I paraphrased from comments in the newspaper. 

Complaints about the new city hall centered around cost which at twenty million bucks doesn't seem too terriblky much in modern dollars for a modern office building centrally located with parking and all proper modern facilities. Mind you anything is too much money ina town devoted to complaining. 

I also found the grave of the former city employee after whom the building is named. She must have been quite the powerhouse, Josephine Parker as she also has a lane named for her off Angela Street betweenb Duval and Simonton...behind the former city hall where she worked which is now the Fire Station.

I like the new building. I like the qya it looks, the way it works and the details they added or kept from it's historic illustrious past. 

The Just 4 Kids voluntary after hours programn decorated power boxes around town some years ago and now this box shown below refers to a school that no longer exists...

Just half a block away is the Dairy Queen, that purveyor of fast food and soft serve icea cream that is not actually located in a tourist zone or on the Boulevard in New Town but is tucked away out of sight formerly serving the students from the school which no longer exists. Not a problem apparently:

On the subject of complaints I remmber when the Natuional Weather Service building was being rebuilt here across from City Hall and people started moaning about the red walls. It turns out it was some sort of undercoat paint and when the building was finished it was rather tastefully clad in wood. That shut the moaners up. But they do have to whine don't they?

 Here's a picture of Sandy's and the rather useful shaded outside seating:

White Street looked confused and busy the other day with it's new paving and even marked bike lanes. It may just take extra coffee to sort it all out and luckily there is planety for sale, and good stuff, on the street to cope with the demand. 

Mechanical Entropy, Coffee & Gossip

They say that things come in threes, catastrophes usually and though I can't say its devastating it definitely gets annoying when one's life is taken up by things mechanical going awry.  There has been the ongoing struggle to get the boat fixed, a mysterious ailment that fingers crossed, seems to be okay for now. Then there are my two wheelers...When I was over at Jiri's shop on Stock island it looked like a Vespa dealer with other people's Italian scooters on both stands:

My Bonneville is in the shop for its major annual service. It's seven years old with 81,000 miles on the clock and roughly once a year it gets a major going over, all fluids changed, cables lubricated, carburetors balanced and this time around tires, chain and sprockets replaced. Also I had some difficulty starting after a rain storm one night at work so I asked that the plug caps as well as the plugs themselves be replaced. It was a mysterious failure to start that corrected itself equally mysteriously and I fear moisture in the exposed ignition system was to blame. Pushing the 500 pound Bonneville to Jiri's shop from work was going to be a tough four miles. I was glad when it decided to start, just as mysteriously when I pressed the starter button as an idle afterthought about the time I got tired of pushing the motorbike. It roared to life and I jumped on and rode home directly not daring to hope I would arrive. I did 23 miles without hesitation or stalling and immediately got on the phone with Jiri who promised to investigate when I brought the bike back in.

If that failure happens again I may have to have the coils replaced but we shall see if plug caps solve the issue. Meanwhile my wife's Vespa which I have appropriated for the time being as my daily rider, needed a new rear tire so that was one more job for The Man. A quickie, but still a chore as I don't do tires on my modern Vespa struggling with wheel removal tire irons and all that. On my 1979 soon-to-be restored Vespa the interchangeable wheels have split rims which don't need tire irons to remove the tires. Very nice old fashioned technology which is one reason I like the old two stroke models; order the tires and install them myself. Plus I get a spare wheel to drag around with me on the road. 

Jiri has been coping with his own troubles, an ex-wife who went back Up North and took their daughter. Jiri lives for his daughter and is distraught living in his beloved Key West with his child so far away. Just one more reminder that life in the Keys can be real tough, as Paradise can be a demanding mistress.  I suspect in Spring, if the ex is still enamored of the Great White Wilderness of the snowy northern states I may well be losing my mechanic who would rather repair snowmobiles in Michigan if it means seeing his offspring every day. I am desolate at the thought. All that would be left of mechanics within a hundred miles is the Yamaha dealer in Key West and a Harley guy on Big Pine Key. My Triumph will have to go to the dealer in Miami if my worst fear comes to pass and Jiri leaves. Welcome to the Keys where everything changes and not always for the better!

My Vespa needed new fuel hoses, the ten year old originals were rotting and the scooter was running too rough for Jiri to countenance. I left on a Vespa running as smooth as silk on new rubber. Then I stopped to get a Cuban coffee on my way to an unnatural daytime overtime shift at work. I got to listen to a lot of conversation as I waited and as is the way they talked about everything under the sun. The weather, the (lack of) hurricanes (so far), work stuff, and the news headlines. Which made me squirm in this case.

The police department has been in the news lately and they had some tart comments about what they had read. I avoid knowing about anything that either does not relate directly to my job answering  phones at the department, or is not reported in the paper, so I like being a  mushroom at work, in the dark about all news because no one has the full true story and everyone has an opinion. Lining up for Cuban coffee felt like participating in a stage play as a walk on silent part as I stood behind the principal players in the daily drama of as the city turns. I listened, said nothing and tried to pretend the sudden silence as I stepped forward to collect my con leche had nothing to do with me, or the uniform shirt I was wearing with a big silver cloth police badge. I took my coffee, reaching through the frigid atmosphere breathed by men who had said too much, too publicly, in a  very small introverted little town. I took my coffee and ran, saying nothing, wondering what can one possibly say in a world where no one believes journalists but everyone reads them anyway.

One time I was in a similar situation only the Mouth was some other guy in a line in front of me going on about how dispatchers ask too many questions when you call 911. I broke in and proceeded to explain in some excruciating detail exactly why we ask the questions and I don't know if he learned anything from my detailed explanation but at least it was me and the job I do he was bad mouthing, so I was happy to set him straight, politely but in no uncertain terms. We ask questions for a reason when you dial 911.

My advice to anyone moving to the Keys is the same: mind who you get mad at, because you never know the extent and the depth of human relationships in these small tight knit communities. And at the end of the day gossip is primed to explode unexpectedly harming anyone within reach. Lucky for me and for those guys I just kept my head down and kept moving. Tomorrow who knows if I will be as successful, just minding my own beeswax..

From The Archives: Cudjoe And The Fort

To mark our safe landing on Cudjoe I have dug up these old pictures of the blimp on Cudjoe Key.
 

The  blimp known as Fat Albert has always been a mysterious object hovering over the Lower Keys, run by the Air Force and supposedly seeking out air and sea traffic in the Florida Straits. Last year budget cuts threatened its future until the weather people at NOAA offered to pay for it. After that offer was made nothing more was heard and there it is still, checking for I-don't-know-what.

There is a surf shop in Key West which is odd as there is no surf thanks to the reef and shallow surrounding waters.

 On windy days there is windsurfing though.

 I found these pictures of the early days of what has become a familiar sight at key west Bight.

Big sandwiches and small prices. How could this not succeed? Except that there are more coffee shops than you can count...

I took this picture of these colorful houses on Big Coppitt alongside the highway because they were at the heart of a controversy reported in the paper. Habitat for Humanity organized the construction and the neighbors did a great job of trying to stop those people from getting a  foothold. Poverty makes no friends. However the homes are still there, looking fine and I wonder what the fuss was all about. Especially as Big Coppitt is hardly a manicured community. 

 The constant in my essays, here seen putting my wife's exercise mat to good use:

 Really good use:

These two Labradors worry people sometimes and they call the police to "do something." Oddly enough they are very happy and as far as I know they do return to earth when they feel like it. It is disconcerting though to look up and see them peering down.



 They may not be your mother but they have high expectations of you:

Here follow some pictures of Fort Jefferson, seventy miles west of Key West with a rather pleasant campground on the island.

 Millions of bricks...

...sand...

...and during the day, people. Then the ferry takes them home and the island is occupied by campers and boaters.

 A good place to wake up and brew up.

And a fine spot to get a private sunset.

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Little Jon's Coffee Shop

I have felt it an obligation on recent early morning forays into the big bad city of Key West to eat some certain breakfast food to write up a couple of breakfast reviews. Recently I had a sandwich at Kim's Kuban on the Boulevard and the other day I had one at Little Jon's on First Street near Flagler.This is a true hole in the wall operation with a serving window under an awning and a counter with a couple of stools. The coffee was hot and sweet and the sandwich came by a couple of minutes later. "Bacon egg and cheese with a medium con leche with one" (sugar) made up my million calorie order. The thing about Cuban breakfast sandwiches is that proper Cuban bread is made with lard which adds to the caloric effect. I only get this stuff as a rare treat and I thoroughly enjoy it when I do but a daily diet of this food will do one no good at all. On the other hand we see people lining up at fast food joints daily so perhaps...but then take a look:The bread is crusty and flaky on the outside the egg mixture in the middle isn't greasy and the coffee is hot. This is the breakfast of champions, and the presence of the day's newspaper is the icing on the cake. I brought mine from home, celebrating Tom Hambright's quarter century as Monroe County historian.Hambright is responsible among other things for the Today in History column and photo op on page two of the Citizen. I always read it right after the Voice's anonymous comments on the state of the county. He also provides researchers with historical tools from the library's resources and commentary when called for. That he looks a tad bit like actor Joss Ackland is just a tad bit confusing for me:In later life Ackland has played a fair few villainous roles which I don't think would be at all suited to the stately Mr Hambright. And then the con leche was gone and it was time to go back to reality.

Kim's Kuban

Walking into the sandwich shop on North Roosevelt Boulevard is more a matter of walking into a conversation than into a restaurant. Yes, they will take your order promptly and get to working making the café con leche and the bacon egg and cheese sandwich, but the conversation flows on smoothly though the work.It is my regret, and to the benefit of my waistline, that I work nights and rarely get out to eat a bought breakfast but when I do I like Kim's Kuban for a breakfast sandwich. Corey made my coffee never dropping the sports talk ball while he did. The Miami Heat had a notable win the night before and he laughed that anyone who came in "half asleep" had been up late watching the game. Me? I read the paper and gloat over my crusty bread, and hot egg filling. I know that most visitors to Key West prefer 5 Brothers on Southard or Sandy's on White and there is nothing at all wrong with their sandwiches but for some reason Kim's has always got my top vote.Perhaps it's just snobbery because you have to know it's there to find it on the Boulevard next to the Yamaha Motorcycle shop. All I can do now is wait till heaven knows when the next time will be that I am in town early enough for breakfast with an excuse to go and eat a million calorie sandwich like no other.

El Siboney

It has happened again, and I got invited out to dinner by a dude who reads the blog.Marybeth and her husband Keith cornered the wife and I at El Siboney and forced us to accept their hospitality, so under their protective wing I was able to order the breaded and fried palomilla steak and boiled yucca.It's hard to starve at El Siboney so my wife and I usually share an order but for some reason she was feeling expansive so she ordered a Siboney steak which comes with shredded parsley, Keith got stuck into a plate of fried pork chunks, hard core Cuban fare and Marybeth took the restrained route following my wife's lead. El Siboney does not overflow with decorative warmth as it were:Keith and Marybeth live in the mountains of Colorado but vacation frequently in Key West where Keith was stationed in the 1970s. It's the rare visitor to Key West that takes an interest in the past but Keith is one of those and he enjoys organizing himself around the book Streets of Key West, that I quote from. Marybeth got stuck in with my wife and I was happy to let those two do their thing.Keith watched me whip out my little canon SX100 and said: "You take your pictures with that?" as I swiveled in my chair to catch a patron involved in enjoying her food:If we ever get a revolution around here text messaging will be the first thing I vote to ban. However the crass younger generation did not set the tone for the whole place. Some people were visiting this Key West institution to enjoy what El Siboney is famous for, low prices and excellent Cuban cooking: I also took a sneak shot, in the style of A Scooter in Turkey, with rather sneak-shot results, so I will need to perfect the technique apparently:We nattered on for hours it seemed like, time enough to have a Cuban custard, natilla, and coffee, but as I was going to work Keith sank the Presidente beer by himself. El Siboney has moved into the 20th century and now takes credit cards. I rather seem to think it has been doing that for a while but I have got into the groove of paying cash when I eat there: I hope when they return next year they will take up the offer to stop by our house and see how the rubes live in the country outside the metropolis. Rather to my surprise they took me upon my offer of the nickel tour of the police station so I have high hopes we shall meet again. Perhaps with pictures of Key West as was.I like eating out at El Siboney, despite the restaurant's sale a few years ago the place hasn't changed one bit. It's still slightly funky, particular and very neighborhood oriented.We weren't the only people hanging out happily at 900 Catherine Street.