Comedy of Errors

Tony's Seafood 597 Second Street Cedar Key, Florida 32625 First off, Cedar Key, Florida (as noted on the city limits sign) is the #1 producer of farm raised clams in the United States. This may be true, but dinner on Sunday night at Tony's Seafood on Second Street was not evidence of that fact. How exactly does a seafood restaurant who regards itself as the only restaurant in town that uses exclusively local seafood - and charges a premium for that fact - run out of clams by 7:00 PM? How does this same local seafood bastion run out of oysters at the same time? How does this same restaurant take an hour to turn out a burger (ordered well and delivered to the table rare) and a bowl of clam chowder (good but pre made - just heat it up)? How, you may ask, do all of these come to pass in one restaurant? The answer: No Tony, just his stoned brother Eric. Tony may be a whiz in the kitchen, but Eric just stares at the grill trying to figure out what to do next. Tony may be a great host, Eric yells at the nicely dressed woman who came into the kitchen to see why her order was taking hours to prepare. Tony may have earned a reputation that demands that folks call ahead for reservations, Eric allows 9 of 10 tables to be without food for over an hour. Let me be honest, I hope for Eric's sake that he was stoned. If he were that slow and dim witted - and stone cold sober - he has real worries about being in the restaurant business. I am not sure what my favorite dining moment was at Tony's.... from our ring-side seats at the door to the kitchen, we got to see it all in living color! Hmmm... was it Eric staring at the grill and demanding that the waitresses stop bringing him tickets... was it the scene where Eric and his prep chef looked into the freezer, hoping that some frozen miracle would just pop out... was it the waitress suggesting the "Cab-roh-nay Savanne".... If Diane or I had actually ordered one of the $25 entrees, and the service was... well... as it was... I would have given Eric a little Scarface introduction to my "little friend".... Holy shit. The only thing I have ever seen that could compare - other than Nancy Paranha cussing me out - was the lady at Cedar Key's other high end destination, the Blue Desert Cafe... where every meal (and I shit you not) is prepared serially... that is to say that person A gets their order cooked to perfection.... and the the chef STARTS on the next meal.... the end result is that no one gets to eat together... ever. Who are these people? More importantly, how in the hell do they not only stay in business... but have a waiting list for reservations....

Friday the 13th

David & I decided a little dining excursion was just what we needed to shake the gloom off our rainy Georgia Friday so we headed up to Aiken for Stromboli at Ferando's. They were packed and though our food only warranted a "good" rather than it's usual "really good" we think it was probably due to the deluge of customers who like us came in out of the rain. Also I thing that Pizza really is their strong suit. Service gets an A+ for effort tonight... our young waiter (who had a certain Sean Astin look about him) was personable and attentive even though he looked so overwhelmed we feared his head might actually pop off. The rain let up and we went in search of further adventures..... and ended up at The White Elephant for coffee and dessert. Downtown Augusta just doesn't seem to be very lively at night and there were only a few people in the restaurant. We sat at the bar and had a nice chat with Jai the owner. She'd been stood up by a reservation for 20 but in spite of her dissapointment she was still very good company. I had the bananas foster which is a unique take on the classic in a torte form. It was exceptional and I will absolutely order it again! As we suspected with our previous mention of the coffee we just didn't catch it at the right time the first go-round but this time it was fresh, hot and excellent. We asked for a small taste of the Garlic Dressing that we love so much - I swear I could drink the stuff! I'm trying to make my own version which I thought was pretty good but after tasting the real thing again I am not even in the same league (back to the drawing board)! The combo of stromboli, bananas foster and garlic was pretty bizarre and we decided to make it even more eclectic by tasting some of Jai's Mom's hot sauce - it was hot, sweet and yummy stuff! So much so that we bought a jar to take home - autographed by the Lady herself! Maybe it'll inspire me on some of the 4 lbs of turkey breast I still need to find a recipe for.....

On The Road Again

Creole Red New Orleans "Style" Restaurant 409 West Congress Street Savannah, Georgia "Historic Savannah's ONLY New Orleans Style Restaurant" for good reason. Why could Katrina not have take a slightly eastern course and washed away Creole Red's? I would personally push the plunger that set off the explosives to bring a levy full of water down on Creole Red's. FEMA should be notified as this is definitely a hazard to national security. Are you getting the picture that I didn't like Creole Red's? Well, actually, I sort of liked Creole Red's - my colon however had other opinions. And it is not by accident that I used the plural on "opinions" - Creole Red's was a repeat offender. The first clue should have come when we sat down (all alone in the entire restaurant) and saw that the "New Orleans Style" included Texas Pete hot sauce. Ummm.... For one, Texas Pete hot sauce is from North Carolina - not really New Orleans or even Texas for that matter. How about Crystal or even Tabasco? With no one else in the restaurant, it was amazing that it took almost 45 minutes (I know because we watched the entire Savannah TV news while waiting) for our food to arrive. I ordered a very standard Crawfish Etoufee, while Diane had the gumbo. I guess Diane didn't realize that she had ordered the "bone in" gumbo - Fish bones... we can only hope. Perhaps the Creole Red folks were trying some voodoo thing with the chicken bones, it was hard to tell. For what it was worth, my etoufee was not... well... bad. Good would not be a word I would describe it with either. How about, "It didn't outright suck". Yep, that just about sums it up. Even someone in Fodor's got the repeat offender status from eating at Red's! The ambiance was... notable - and not in a good way. The blaring televisions were only trumped by the extremely wasted woman who came in with her "old man". They went to the back for a while... to do... who knows. Two younger guys came in and sat down across the restaurant from us. They seemed nice - in an upscale drug dealer kind of way. The wasted woman came out from the back and started talking to the two young guys. In order to get her to leave them alone, they passed her some - "go away" token. Sadly for the young drug dealers, it did not work. She felt obligated to sit and chat with them in exchange for their "kindness" - even reluctantly dragging her "old man" over to thank them. Diane and I had choked our meals down so I planned a quick get away in order to avoid the gun play that I thought was about to happen. Mercifully for the drug dealer guys - and the two of us as well - the lady left to go enjoy her token. I don't think that we'll be going back.