A Good Lunch is "Easy" at the Over Easy Cafe on Sanibel!

Today, our last full day on Sanibel Island, we took Poco shopping at the Olde Sanibel Shoppes. After a stop at Island Paws, a fun shop catering to pets (mostly dogs), where we bought Poco a little bandana and us a set of Maltese drink coasters, we went for lunch at the Over Easy Cafe. The manager here at the Signal Inn, where we're staying, recommended it for its good food and dog-friendly service.

We sat at an outdoor table, under a fan-cooled canopy, and Poco did his charming puppy routine...which he's very good at! The server brought us a glass of ice water for Poco, which we poured into his foldable soft bowl. Then we got down to ordering and enjoying our lunch...

Lisa chose the lemon-pepper grilled mahi sandwich, and she selected a side of pasta salad from the choices of french fries, cole slaw, cottage cheese, or the pasta salad. Although she thought the mahi tasted more of blackening spices than lemon-pepper, she enjoyed it.

I had the crunchy grouper sandwich and it was a full filet and very crunchy! The grouper was very sweet and tasty, and the cole slaw I chose had a touch of onion. The sliced tomatoes we both were served with our sandwiches were very ripe and juicy!

Since they had some special desserts we decided to try them. Lisa ordered the apple crisp, which came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and I had the bread pudding, made from the Cafe's homemade cinnamon rolls. We both found the apple crisp to have almost too much cinnamon, to the point of being spicy. I liked the bread pudding but both portions were way too big to finish!

Check out the Over Easy Cafe when you visit Sanibel! (http://www.overeasycafesanibel.com/)

Sanibel Has "The World's Best Breakfast"!

Since we hadn't shopped last night we just HAD to go out for breakfast! We'd read that the Lighthouse Cafe has "The World's Best Breakfast" so we decided to see for ourselves...

As you might expect from the name, the Lighthouse Cafe (http://www.lighthousecafe.com/) is located right down the street from the Sanibel Lighthouse, and capitalizes on this with a decor of walls filled with photos, drawings, & paintings of lighthouses around the world. Shelves contain lighthouse figurines.

OK, to the food...Lisa selected the Eggs Benedict ($8.95), which was classic in its ingredients of the English muffin base (you could have it "Lighthouse-style" by choosing a croissant for $1.00 more) with ham and poached egg but took a different turn with a Key Lime Hollandaise sauce. You're served two "Bennies" sided by "Lighthouse potatoes", which are really delicious cubed home fries with onions. Lisa turned out be a little disenchanted with the tang of the Key Lime Hollandaise sauce and would have preferred the standard preparation.

I had the Blueberry Whole Wheat Hotcakes ($6.95) (the menu states, "Our own recipe made from Whole Wheat Flour, Brown Sugar, fresh Eggs and whole Milk")...there were three large beauties on the plate, chocked full of small fresh blueberries. They serve these with a small pitcher of warm blueberry sauce but I opted for the warm maple syrup (purist that I am). I selected a side order of smoked sausage links ($3.50), which had all the qualities one wants in a sausage...lucious links of smoky, salty, "porkiness".

The Lighthouse Cafe has tons of other breakfast items like "Pan-Handled" egg dishes, omelettes, frittatas. I filed the "Ocean Frittata" away for a future visit...it has shrimp, scallops, "krabmeat", broccoli, & mushrooms with artichoke hearts and an Alfredo Sauce topping.

Try the Lighthouse Cafe when you visit Sanibel Island! You won't be disappointed!

Gourmet Librarians go to Sanibel Island (Post #1)

We're spending the Memorial Day weekend on Sanibel Island, on the southwest coast of Florida. Since we'll be here until Monday, we'll let you know where we eat and how it was! Since we're staying at a nice little apartment we also can cook so we might create some island specialities!

Tonight we ate out since we were tired and didn't feel like shopping. Some of the guests who'd signed the guestbook in our unit recommended the Island Cow restaurant (http://www.sanibelislandcow.com/), and after reading the menu in the magazine here, we decided to try it. They also have outdoor seating and we're able to take our little Maltese, Poco, to dinner!

The menu at the Island Cow is HUGE...both in size and selections! It was hard for me to decide what to have. I eventually chose what they call the "Holy Cow!" basket ($23.99 with grouper). It was a fried seafood lover's delight of calamari, clams, scallops, oyster, shrimp, and a filet of the catch of the day. I chose grouper. Fries and Tropical Cole Slaw (with small pineapple chunks) and two hush puppies joined the seafood in the very crowded basket. Small cups contained cocktail sauce, marinara sauce, tartar sauce, and 1,000 Island Dressing.

This very ample dinner was crisply fried with not an ounce of oil anywhere! I needed a box to tote some leftovers back to our unit...

Lisa had the "Fishin' Rules" dinner, which basically lets you create your own plate...choose a fish (Lisa had mahi at $18.99), choose your preparation method (Lisa had them char-grill it), choose two sides (cheese grits & steamed veggies for Lisa).

The mahi was tasty with a pleasant grilled flavor, and the veggies were delicious. Unfortunately, the cheese grits were a bit watery.

We'll likely go back to the Island Cow before we leave Sanibel because, as their menu states, they have "Udderly Great Food"! We agree!

A "Cheesy" Luncheon!

Last Saturday we hosted a luncheon, and as Lisa described, we ordered a cheese platter containing 3 cheeses from The Cheese Course in Mizner Park in Boca Raton, FL. Because we're all about "gilding the lily" we decided to create three "kicked up" versions of a grilled cheese sandwich. Actually, they were more like paninis...

First, we decided on something with ham & cheese, similar to the sandwich we had at The Cheese Course but grilled. We chose Black Forest Ha, picked up a nice aged Gouda that we sliced on our slicing machine, and decided to add sliced pears. We baked a brioche loaf to hold all these goodies!

Next, we went traditional Italian veggie...grilled eggplant & red onion, mozzarella, and roasted pepper. For this we baked a rustic log of whole wheat.

The third sandwich had smoked turkey, Fontina cheese, and caramelized onions, also on the brioche...

We served a variety of accompaniments that we'd found while cruising the aisles at Whole Foods...fig preserves, honey mustard, spinach artichoke spread, and an interesting plum smoked tea spread.

Once the sandwiches were grilled we cut them into quarters and served them to our friends...and it was good!

The Cheese Course

An aged gouda

Oma




Cabbot Clothbound Cheddar

Winnemere

Tetilla

We had heard from friends about this shop/cafe and wanted to try it so were very excited when we learned that they were opening up a shop in Boca. We went there for lunch a couple of weeks ago then ordered a cheese platter for a luncheon we were hosting the following week. We were quite pleased with both experiences.



For lunch we ordered a 2 cheese cheese course and a Black Forrest Ham sandwich. The cheese course came with 2 cheeses, baguette bread, and one accompaniment. We ordered Winnemere cheese (a somewhat stinky, washed rind cheese) and Tetilla a semi-hard, very mild cheese. The accompaniment we choose was the raspberry/cranberry relish and we added a tapanade to go with. The Winnemere was rather mild and though I am not a huge stinky cheese fan, we both really liked it. The Tetilla was VERY mild and we felt lacking in flavor. The accompaniments and bread were all excellent. The sandiwch came with brie, raspberry/cranberry relish and greens. It was very good. They also had 2 different types if cheese for sampling. While we were there, we ordered a small cheese platter to go with a luncheon we were hosting the following week.



The platter came with 3 cheeses, 2 accompaniments, grapes and a baguette. For this, we ordered Cabbot Clothbound Cheddar (aged and rather sharp), Repenauer (an aged gouda also somewhat sharp) and the Winnemere with the raspberry/cranberry relish and sundried tomato pesto. During the week I received 2 calls from the folks there saying first that the Winnemere, being at the end of its season, may not be available and asking if she could substitute Oma, also a washed rind cheese. I said yes. She called again saying that though they had the Winnemere she was not satisfied with its quality (again because it was at the end of its season) and we agreed to substitute Oma. All cheeses were great as were the accompaniments.



The staff were extremely knowledgeable and great at customer service. Definitely this has become one of our favorites and we will return often.

Bankok in Boca

We ate last night at Bankok in Boca. We ate outside for our first experience of taking our little puppy Poco with us out to dinner. We were the only ones outside. In fact there were very few eating at the restaurant.

The worst part of the experience, and the only bad part at all, was parking! That is a NIGHTMARE parking lot. All roads in are extremely narrow. AND there is NO OUTLET to any of them. So we got pulled into one parking area only to find the person in front of us backing out because there were no more spots and she couldn't turn around or get out any other way than to back out. As we were backing out to let her out, someone pulled in behind us. We got really lucky after about 10 minutes of fearing for our lives and found a spot!

The service was great! The food was wonderful! And Poco loved it! http://www.bankokinboca.com/ Carol had the shrimp and scallops delight, I think, and I had the scallop pepper platter. We each had soup to start. The food was fresh, colorful and quite tasty! It is a very nice restaurant. We had the added benefit(?) of hearing the live musician at the Irish Pub next door since we sat outside. This guy sang a lot of Irish tunes along with a song about Peter Cottontail who you better watch out because he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake... The restaurant is at the south end of the Mizner shopping center. The worst part (and i guess the best part in some ways) was that there were very few people there while all the other restaurants were packed.

In any case, it was a great dining experience and I highly recommend it to everyone who likes Thai food.

The WORST Restaurant Experience Ever!

We're in Tallahassee, FL for an annual visit to advocate for libraries. We'll spend the next two days roaming the halls of the Capitol talking to our local legislators about how Florida's libraries change lives, especially in today's economic climate. But first, we gotta eat, right?

We're staying at the Doubletree Hotel, right near the Capitol, a beautiful hotel with an emphasis on great customer service. That's why this dinner story is so distressing and puzzling, and why we're mentioning it here.

Tonight there were twelve of us dining, and I'd made a reservation last night at the restaurant onsite, Jacob's on the Plaza.. "No problem,", I was told, "We'll be happy to accommodate you!"

I guess I first should mention that Lisa & I had dinner at Jacob's last night, and while it wasn't the best meal we've ever had, it wasn't the worst either. Our complaints were that Lisa's filet mignon was tough and grisly & my baked potato wasn't quite hot enough. We didn't complain, and perhaps we should have. We also had breakfast there this morning and it was OK. Anyway, back to tonight's debacle....

We arrive for our 7:30pm reservation, and all order dinner. We talk and wait for dinner...and talk & wait....and wait some more.... The menu states that bread comes with meals but none is brought. One of our companions asks for bread since we're waiting so long for our meals. We wonder if the server heard her because no bread comes out for a l-o-n-g time but then finally arrives...a basket of rolls that was fresh....yesterday! Today they were dry and tasteless....

It was 9pm and still, we had no dinner! One of our party walked to the hostess station to inquire, and by the time she walked back to our table, the plates began to arrive, just like magic!

To make a long story a bit shorter, NO ONE was happy with their meal....most of dinners were unacceptably cold...one person's filet was cold, and the rice served with it was ice-cold, as was the rice on another's plate (although her hamburger was warm enough), someone's vegetables tasted like fish, my ribs were barely warm & my baked potato wasn't warm enough to melt the butter I put on it!

Some of us ordered new meals, some didn't want to since it meant waiting again, and I asked that mine be heated up. We asked why it had taken so long for our meals to come out in the first place and the servers gave lame excuses about problems in the kitchen, too many room service orders, and a group of 15 in their private dining room (but that party was leaving the restaurant when we were first being seated!). I had to interject that these weren't acceptable reasons since we'd eaten there last night and my potato was barely warm then! We asked to see the Manager, and after 10 minutes were informed that she'd left for the night. A few minutes later we were told that the Manager was returning to the restaurant. When she got there she apologized to us, said all meals would be "no charge" and that she would resolve the issue. She came back a few minutes and began clearing off the table, telling us that she'd had a "little chat" with the cook, and something about "having a son his age" (I didn't see the relevance!).

We were nice enough to give the servers a small tip, even though many of us felt that they'd been part of the problem...they never came out & said they were sorry it was taking so long, and when asked why, they blamed the kitchen staff for it all.

I think we've all had a negative restaurant experience or two but I've never eaten somewhere where EVERYONE was dissatisfied! As librarians we emphasize service, and we can see that the problems at this restaurant start at the top. I guess we won't be having dinner at Jacob's again during our stay!