Bier Boutique and Sidecars

Robert said let's have lunch, so I said let's, and I know he likes Beer Boutique so there we were.

It's a proper hole-in-the-wall with outside bench seating so I had thought to bring Rusty but he wasn't having any as the day had warmed up and he wanted to stay home. I took the Triumph and it was hot on the ride into town.

 Robert got a lettuce wrapped burger and I got a monster special contraption with ham and egg and liberally sprinkled with sriracha. I stabbed the egg with a knife so it wouldn't squirt and the end result was good to eat and I kept it all off my clothes. 

Robert likes the compostable containers which are, if not unique, then rare in Styrofoam laden Key West, the anti-eco city.

The Bier Boutique (LINK) was opened a couple of years ago on the site of a Cuban place (see below) by a couple of Midwestern transplants, Scott and Heather, and they make a point of packing in the craft beers to make a meal more interesting. They deliver and are closed on Monday, otherwise open for lunch and dinner till 8 pm. 

It used to be  Little Jon's a Cuban Coffee and sandwich shop which I quite liked. 

And they made sandwiches too:

But change comes as always and it isn't necessarily bad. I made the same point earlier this week in my review of the Firefly Restaurant. And then there are motorcycles, posted here because I saw them the same day and have nowhere else to post them. First a Ural sidecar combination which I want to like but which isn't dependable enough for the sort of mileage I ride. I think one day Rusty might like riding in a hack when he gets over his nerves at the sounds of motors. People who ride these machines hard spend a lot of time maintaining them and even more time modifying them to work and then rebuilding them as well. Much work for the riding.

 And oddly enough I also saw this machine the same day. It's a Vespa and a bit of  hybrid as the handlebars are off a modern P series Vespa but some of the other controls(lack of an automatic engine oiler sight glass) indicate it is an older European model. I am a bit nerdy about Vespas especially as I wait anxiously for mine to come back from the tuner in Bradenton. I wouldn't like a Vespa sidecar because even if the scooter is the 200cc version it will only pull about 45 miles per hour and it would be awkward to park in scooter parking...the worst of all worlds.

Burgers and sidecars, all bases covered for the day.

Simonton Street

Simonton Street runs parallel to Duval Street and is named after one of the four Americans who bought the island from Juan Salas who got the land in a grant from the King of Spain.

It's a faster street to negotiate than Duval, which is named for the first governor of the territory of Florida, and Simonton has a tendency to be more useful than the t-short shops and galleries of Duval Street which is better known.

There used to be an ironworks here which seems to be in the process of being swept away and replaced by one more bicycle outlet.

You get the feeling bicyclists have an advocate here. In a broader culture devoted to internal combustion bicycles live on the edge of respectability in Key West. To me that fact that drivers get irritated at cyclists is just another sign of the evolving culture of this town and not necessarily for the better.

Expansion is the paradigm though where it will all end I'm sure I don't know.

For Rusty the large trees flourishing on Simonton Street are all he needs to worry about. They are repositories of stories told by other passing dogs.

Across the street the Gato building, a former cigar factory owned by a family of that name now operates as a set of county offices.

The Gato family discovered there was cheaper land to be had in Tampa and like the rest of the cigar trade they relocated. Part of Key West's boom and bust economy.

The bust part these days is a large population relatively of people who cannot keep their lives in check and end up sleeping on strangers' porches. hence the profusion of ghastly plastic No Trespassing signs, stating the obvious in neon red.

In the same way this rather ingenious old wooden bench is adapted for customer use during the day but when the store is closed the comfortable bit is locked in the open, unusable, position.

The hasp keeps the seat upright and with a padlock can be opened easily to allow Sugar Apple (LINK) customers to sit and eat their organics.

Take the work out of your vacation. I wonder if they can do the reverse? Better not ask.

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The Benefits Of Dog

My wife says I am much harder to live with when I don't have a dog so it was inevitable that we would be dogless for not very long. That we were dog-free for less than two weeks came as a bit of a surprise but that's what happened. The decision to get a dog requires some planning as one has to expect the new arrival to require training and supervision. In that we are lucky as we work opposite shifts and the new dog is rarely home alone.

In a country where millions of animals are euthanized for want of homes every year I cannot conceive of paying to buy a dog from a breeder or worse a pet store. Some people say abandoned dogs are damaged goods, though from my experience the humans dumping the dogs are more likely to be damaged. Dogs tend to be grateful animals and have long memories so the kindness you show them tends to have a longer lasting impact.

Rusty answers to his name, comes when called almost always, has stopped chewing his leash and no longer catnaps with one eye open all the time. My wife calls this picture she took of a soundly sleeping dog: "Rusty practicing for Cirque du Soleil."

I overcame complaints that Rusty doesn't sit in puddles as Cheyenne used to by taking him for a long enough hot enough walk that the temptation was too much and he yielded to the need to cool off:

He is everything I want in a dog and I've had him six weeks. A few months ago he was ending a year long spell if not longer as a street dog in Homestead so the argument that abandoned dogs are damaged is not one he lives by. He doesn't run away because he likes being at home. In the morning he bounds down the stairs and charges into me, as happy as ever to see me.

He gets me out of the house, we walk and he makes me power walk as he is young and active. He is learning to walk on a leash and though his pace is awkward as he reacts to every sound around him, we are getting to know each other.

I ended a recent walk at Five Brothers on Ramrod Key where the line was unbearable. Had I not called ahead I'd have given up as the crush was too tight in the grocery store. As it was my wife stopped off for coffee to her way to work in Marathon and noticed the lunch special so I was under particular instructions to bring home dinner...so I had to suffer the lines.

It was worth the wait as Cubans have a particular way with oxtail. And I like boiled yucca too. Rusty quite likes oxtail bones too it turns out, so his wait for me to finish buying lunch was worth it.

Rusty's rescuers estimated his age at 4 which means I can hope to get perhaps a dozen more busy years out of him, I'd like to think. After Rusty I imagine I may have time for one more dog before it's my turn to be put down, not the dog's so I am hoping to make the next decade worth while for both of us.

In June we are planning a three week road trip with Quebec City as our northernmost point so I have to get his passport ready from the vet and get him ready for long rides, cool days and cold nights and different kinds of woods to walk in. I expect he will have no problem adapting, because travel is now his fate and if we do get to retire as we are supposed to he will get to se more of the world than he ever expects to. I hope he likes it.

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Firefly Restaurant

I suppose when we asked ourselves why we haven't been here before its a combination of things. We liked Colombian Grace that was here before and when it became Firefly early reports were mixed. That happens a lot in any new restaurant and it's unfair. It turns out it was also stupid on our part to not put Firefly on our list of places to eat. 

We  got outside seats over looking Petronia Street, and it was  a perfect evening to eat al fresco overlooking Petronia Street:

My wife had a cider with her dinner and because I wasn't working I had a glass of Mama's Little Yella Pills, (seriously) by Oskar Blues, a name so complicated I'm not sure I'd know how to order it again without a cheat sheet. I had to Google "Yellow Beer Oscar" to find the page wherein they describe their beer as I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was called. It was a not hoppy real lager and quite pleasant. 

The menu is a mixture of familiar and not so familiar and even though "modern Southern" cooking is as tired a cliche as any the food is interesting on paper.

My wife always orders friend green tomatoes, always, and sometimes I end up sharing flavor-free discs of rock hard vegetable coated in some weird plastic breading but in this instance things were quite well done:

The crab beignets sounded too weird to pass up and they came with one of those salad afterthoughts that was actually quite bracing and delicious. The beignets themselves were balls of fried crust containing a soft gooey mixture of something creamy that tasted of crab. Decidedly unusual (for me) and quite delicious. The beer was, as they advertised, slightly cloudy.

Nick (left) and I have been working together for several years now at night. Dustin (studying the menu) is new to Key West but experienced in dispatch and as I am currently overseeing his training and testing my work life is rendered quite easy.He is also a good dinner companion. 

JW told us to taste his mac and cheese and duck wings. In the distance we shared pimento cheese with those tediously fashionable benne wafers, dry flaky things that barely could sustain the pimento cheese without crumbling. I'd have preferred old fashioned water biscuits but what do I know?

When the mac and cheese grabs your attention and the pimento cheese is as good as you've had and duck wings in buffalo sauce is delicious, why wouldn't you come back? For the bacon wrapped meatloaf perhaps that Nick enjoyed with brussel sprouts...He said firmly it was good.

 Dustin was positively enthusiastic about his low country gumbo.

 JW used to work with me but he's moved to another city department with civilized daytime hours and I miss him very much, He has children so 911 dispatch is a hard life. Besides he's pretty cool.

Colombian Grace was a good place but apparently things didn't work out with the landlord or something and we lost an interesting South American cuisine. The interior was much as it is now and I remember it fondly. I am also glad I have a modern iPhone camera for my pictures nowadays. 

And their extraordinary creamy fish chowder covered in molten cheese: 

But you know what? Firefly is just fine, not as a replacement but in it's own right. The food was great, the service was excellent attentive and cheerful and patient but not intrusive and we all want to go back. My other colleague unable to show up (someone has to answer 911) texted me she was madly jealous of our dinner out. 

For myself I'd like a gooey dessert or a cobbler or a crisp in a place like this. Key Lime cake sounded good to me but I got voted down and cheesecake isn't tempting enough after the wild and delicious combinations we had tasted. The view across the street was quaint, characteristic, a little run down and peaceful.

 If you get a chance you need to try this place out. I'm going back.

Southernmost Cabanas

A life in Key West's modest little cottages can sometimes spill out untidily as the homes though pretty are small and not always designed with the practical in mind. 

A lot of visitors like the slightly down-at-heel appearance of this town which still lays claim to a slightly off kilter reputation, a place where vice flourishes and those on the run come to seek cover. It's mot really like that but the story is good and who wants to spoil it?

Well it turns out there are people who think homes built "in the Key West Style" are a good compromise between the gritty reality of life in a  Conch Cottage and the modern desire fo convenience and cleanliness and order.

So outside the fence trash cans and dust and messy street signs litter the way. Inside the fence will rise a fabricated community, a kind of community, of neat clean and well appointed homes of a certain style.

Outside the fence where working Key West struggles to make ends meet.

Inside the fence where intruders bring color until they crow at four in the morning and wrench the visitors from their slumbers.

I found the sign slightly ironic wondering who exactly it is that is trespassing...The land used to be owned by the Catholic Diocease which sold it to pay legal bills incurred by people make claims against the church in the sex scandals of note of years past.LINK

So trailers for the working class are gone and homes for people who need a second home in Key West are here. 

The trend is unstoppable it seems. Rusty and I keep walking.