Barbecue In Key West

Feel free to call me obsessive but I still miss Finnegans Wake, the Irish pub more authentic than any other with a superb Irish food menu that used to occupy the space at 320 Grinnell. Other places have come and gone since then, and the last occupant Lucy's Retired Surfer Bar has moved to the three hundred block of Duval. That departure left room for the weirdly named barbecue joint that seems to be quite popular in this its third week, and now appears to be doing a good job of filling the space.

They have  a stage for live music and a full bar and they even offer three unusual and enticing vegetarian plates in an effort to cover all bases for a modern clientele, which gets a thumbs up from me.  Vegetarian Sloppy Joe barbecued pineapple as I recall and a home made bean burger that they describe as a cut above what you are used to in bland frozen mass produced patties. I have to say I was tempted just to put them to the test yesterday!

I confess I miss the atmosphere of Finnegans and the Irish beers and so forth but we have to put the past behind us and I have to try to march to the tune of a new drummer. They do have only a  couple of TV screens so I was able to position myself out of the line of sight of those nasty attention grabbers, so thta was a huge plus for me.

In the rear they have a giant smoker which bodes well... 

 ...and appreciation for the blues which is apparently the preferred music of the brothers that own and run the place. Nothing wrong there.

I ordered a sausage with a side of mac and cheese and George did the same side with an order of tenderloin. It took an absolute age to get the food order in and despite numerous apologies it took a correspondingly long time to get the food. Do not come here on your lunch break as you will never get in and out in less than an hour. If waiting interminably for food, even good food, stresses you out this place will jangle your nerves.

Luckily neither George nor I were in a hurry so the wait just made our tummies rumble and they did bring me refills of the Diet Pepsi I was drinking. I had just come from noon Broga  so I was hot and thirsty. I am not drinking much alcohol at all these days since my Catastrophe and even though George enjoyed  adelicious looking pint I wasn't tempted for some reason.

Here's the thing, and I've said this before: I am useless at do-it-yourself. I hate eating in places where you have to assemble your food on your own. Even Subway stresses me out and I leap in a fog of panic and ask for a sandwich they assemble. I can't stand Sinz where you have to choose ingredients while standing in line to build your own burrito or bowl. My friend Gary posted a picture on Facebook of himself and daughter eating breakfast in Tennessee at a do-it-yourself griddle in the middle of the restaurant table. He loved it; I think it's weird. The point is here you get bread and meat and it's up to you to sauce the food. Stress city for me. I smeared the buns with ketchup and mustard and made a puddle of habanero mango sauce on the plate and hoped for the best. The smoked sausage tasted okay but I had the nagging feeling I short changed myself in some way. I would need to come back with my wife because she loves to make sauces and stuff at the table. However not on her lunch break when she is teaching in Key West as it takes too long to eat here for a working person. Grr. Before a movie maybe with plenty of time in hand.

Above you see my indulgence of an order of beignets, New Orleans doughnuts, half a dozen, far too many for five bucks. They were delicious and I took three home to share with Herself.

George collected two free cups to take home to his family and I retrieved my Burgman 200 scooter from the motorcycle parking lot across the street. Then I came across my sister's favorite kind of vehicle: a classic Land Rover so I stopped:

I paused for a few pictures and sent them by Internet magic to Ullapool in Scotland. She got them immediately and replied such is the blinding speed of modern technology!

Pretty cool all round. Broga - paid for as a gift by the same sister!- was great. I am stronger than I think which is nice to know, but also I feel like I am restoring myself to my full life and that is excellent. I don't commute by scooter yet as eight hours at work wears me out and I want to be alert for the drive home in the morning. But I am riding to town for exercise classes and chores when I don't have Rusty and that feels like another step back to normal.

Eating Out

Friday was, to put it bluntly and eating out day. I went to my second Broga class of the week at which I exercised in far better shape than I had any right to expect, and with a swift change of shirt I presented myself on Stock Island for a Mexican lunch.

Nick comes here every week but he was nothing loathe when I suggested a lunch together at Chico's so we sat and ordered chile relleno for two and he told me about the classic car auction he went to see in Palm Beach.

I splurged when he wasn't looking and though he pretended not to care he made sure he speared his half of the very full plate of sopapillas Mexican doughnuts covered in sugar and offered with a  honey butter sauce. 

I went home and worked off lunch by taking Rusty on a  walk with my neighbor's little girl. Roxie is helpful because she makes Rusty jealous plus she deserves a decent walk as often as I can sneak her away. 

By dusk I girded up my loins and prepared to attack a new eatery at the Sugarloaf Lodge. The old fashioned style motel at Mile Marker 18 has had a variety of eateries in the restaurant but this time they seem to be onto a winner. It goes by the laborious name of South of The Seven and the decor celebrates the fishing lifestyle of our "region" in the Lower Keys.

They do have  a busy Facebook page where they celebrate the local art they have used to create lively and local decorations for the restaurant and bar:

For our own dinner we had Korean barbecue and fried cheese for appetizers and we four tore into them. I guess that means they were good....

I ordered pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon with mashed potatoes and roast sweet potatoes. Hit the spot for meat and veg:

Layne and Wayne (!) got the shrimp and grits which came with tomato sausage and sausage, weird but good:

And to maintain the theme of the indulgent day we shared  blackberry and blueberry crumble and chocolate cake:

In talking about the new place we figured it is looking like it might well be a success. Why places get popular I couldn't say...Fish up the road is not crazily popular but is still open while Bella Luna on Cudjoe five miles away has closed. 

Wayne and Chuck enjoyed the meal as much as we did. There were lots of people too who seemed to enjoy the full bar and restaurant. Bodes well in this unpredictable restaurant market.

Olivia Street By Night

It was early in the morning. Rusty woke me up and demanded a walk. It had been a while since we came to Key West before dawn so I drove us downtown from our home on Cudjoe Key.

I started by taking him to Truman Waterfront which held no interest. So then I stopped on Olivia Street for a look see. This Rusty inspected with greater enthusiasm. I got a few pictures.

It was around five in the morning by the time we got here but there was no one around, except for passing cars on Duval Street. 

I wandered along behind Rusty's busy nose enjoying the warm night air and the architecture that never bores me.

We are told Key West is the largest historic wooden neighborhood in the country. 

Not surprising really. Simonton at Olivia:

I can look at this stuff all night long. All day too, except it's more peopley then.

It's remarkable to me how much detail there is in the homes around Old Town and I've been looking at this stuff for two decades.

Olivia Street looking east, away from Duval Street that is.

And not all of it is wood:

But there again this is old Florida and it looks excellent and atmospheric:

Back on Duval Street briefly, at Petronia:

Mangrove Walk With Dog

Combine this with a cool easterly breeze and you have a perfect walk to end a long work night.

 I still see people online apologizing for crappy phone photos. I left my big camera in the car and used my iPhone 8 for a change.

 I had fun mixing up the compositions and the filters. Apple gives the filters weird names too, like "Vivid Warm' which I find intriguing. Or  "Vivid Cool" for a change.

 A rising sun helps give some dramatic colors too.

 Next day on Summerland Key Rusty was on form exploring.

 I was still waving my iPhone about.

 We sat together for a while enjoying the day.

 And at the end of Niles Channel Road I got all artistic with the black and white filter. 

 I think we had some good walks.

Mall On Duval

It was last Friday evening I parked the car at the Old Town parking lot at Fire Station 2 on Simonton Street. From there Rusty and I took the alleyway past the Onlywood restaurant and debouched onto Duval Street.

Wasn't I surprised to see a whole bunch of diners sitting in the roadway. I had forgotten that on Friday and Saturday evenings the middle blocks of Duval Street are an experimental pedestrian zone.

You can check out the website here  but there isn't much more information to be had. It might be helpful to know city ambassadors in orange vests are there to offer friendly advice and guidance but you can also turn to the police officers on patrol.

My pictures were obviously taken early in the evening so you will have to take my word for it this experiemnt is proving to be a success and why shouldn't it? It's long overdue. 

The pedestrian zone was supposed to end this month but the city extended it into July to see how strong the local support is for the event after the snowbirds go home. So far so good. And if you don't feel well the fire department has two well equipped paramedics ready to take care of anyone in need in the pedestrian zone. A fully equipped advanced life support ambulance is parked two blocks away at the fire station in case you were worried.

And it seems you can get a  tattoo al fresco if you so choose!

There are a couple of prominent local voices raised against the Mall on Duval experiment. It sounds odd at first but their concerns are financial as it costs the city five thousand bucks a night to put on this show.

The interesting thing is, some of the merchants outside the three block zone are agitating for the pedestrian area to be expanded as they see loss of trade where the vehicles drive. It seems pretty obvious this idea is a good one and I hope it will grow,  

I like walking and I think the streets lend themselves to a permanent pedestrian zone on Duval. Move traffic one way on Simonton Street and the other on Whitehead Street, and after lunch you close Duval Street to allow deliveries to be completed and then you have a giant friendly open air hang out where people could shop and gather and eat and drink. 

Include the Bourbon just outside the zone, which looked festive and welcoming with outside stools lined up ready for customers later.

I happened to meet Bill and Toni from Syracuse who tried to steal Rusty but he wasn't having any. Good dog. They were enjoying the mall from their home on Stock Island in between wasting their time reading this page. Hi there!

See? You never know who you'll meet at the Mall on Duval.