Quarterdeck Review

      The Quarterdeck is a chain of sports bars in Florida. Having spent over an hour waiting for a water taxi that never came, AND having spent the day in airports, we were starving and just wanted ANY place we could find within walking distance to eat. We stumbled across the Quarterdeck and were told there was a 45 minute wait but the bar had seats available, so in we walked and away we ate. I really wasn't expecting much but was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and most of all the service.

      Think about Fort Lauderdale in late February, vacation central, so while the Quarterdeck is a very large place, it was PACKED to the rafters. And to top it off, we found out a couple of servers had called in sick, (can't blame them is was 80 and beautiful). But the bartender came over right away with menus and took our drink order, and was back with the drinks in a flash. I noticed they had a very large raw bar, so I asked about the oysters (this can be a scary proposition in a sports bar but what the heck I was feeling lucky). I was assured that the blue points had arrived fresh that morning so I ordered a half dozen. My fellow worker decided to start with the peel your own shrimp. Both plates were exceptional, the oysters really fresh and the shrimp huge, with a whole bunch of them. For our entrees, I went with a really unusual sandwich, blackened fresh grouper, fresh mozzarella, basil and cappicola on a ciabbata roll, and my buddy went with blackened fish tacos. The fish in both entrees was incredibly fresh, and while on paper my sandwich sounds weird the blackened fish, the fresh cheese and the salty, slightly spicy ham worked PERFECTLY together. This was a perfect start to our Fort Lauderdale business trip and highly recommended.

Food,                     3.25  Sports bar food but very well done
Beer and Wine,    3.75   Nice beer selection, typical grocery store wine selections.
Service,                 5.0     I have never given anyone a 5 but this poor guy was HUSTLING, and yet he was pleasant and took the time to explain the menu to us.

Ambiance,             3.0     Sports bar, enough said.
Price,                     3.5      One of the most reasonable of all our Fort Lauderdale meals.

Overall                  3.70 A really nice local chain with above average food for a sports bar. I would recommend them if you are in Florida.

Panera Bread Review

      For some reason, Seven Days, doesn't publish reviews for Panera Bread. I guess for the same reason they don't review McDonald's or Burger King. And while Panera is a chain like those others, I think the food is much better than your usual fast or casual food stop. So anyway here is my review.

      On this particular Saturday we were bored and decided to go to a wine tasting at our favorite wine store in the whole wide world, Dedalus, on the waterfront. Since we were going to be partaking of some rather yummy Austrian wines, we decided to go to Church Street for some lunch first. My first choice was the new taco place, but as we were walking through the mall we noticed Panera Bread. Having eaten at a couple of these in the past, we decided to try this instead.

      Panera is set up like most fast food joints, you order your food at a counter, picking from the menus posted overhead and then they bring your food to your table by locating you on a pager style beeper, (which wasn't working on this particular day, so the servers were having to shout while walking through the very large space). The problem with this is in the Burlington location, there is ALOT of traffic going through the same space as the line snakes through, and the lines can be HUGE. So this creates bottlenecks and confusion, in addition for people not familiar with the menu, (us for instance), you are walking past the bakery, looking up trying to read the menu, trying to find the correct line and trying not to bump into everyone coming and going . PHEW, alot of work involved in just getting your food.

     As you are looking for the correct line to lineup in, pay attention to the bakery you are walking by, it will come back to you in a bit. Fortunately, the place was packed so we had a bit of a wait in line. this gave us time to study the menu.When it was our turn to order, I went with the chipotle chicken panini and wifey went with the salmon Mediterranean salad. Now for my mistake, I was offered any item from the bakery for $.99 but since I had not paid attention to the bakery, I passed. My wife on the other hand spotted a strawberries and cream scone and got one of those . DUH, what a dunce I was, as the normal pricing for bakery items appears to be $2.99 AND on top of that the scone was DELICIOUS.

      Once you place your order, you now have the joy of finding a place to sit. It appears that Panera is a BIG hit with the downtown Burlington crowd. Of course, by offering free wi-fi you are guaranteed to have the laptop squatters taking up valuable table space for hours and hours at a time. I think after 45 minutes, Panera should be able to bring over a mini parking meter and if you don't constantly feed it quarters, out you go. ANYWAYS, we were lucky as we walked around the serving counter, boom a table magically opened up for us. As the wife sat down, I went off to look for the soda fountain, tucked wayyyy in the back, to get her soda. For some strange reason ,the lemonade is served behind the counter? Is lemonade really that much more expensive that you don't want to put it with the soda and coffee pots? So after delivering the soda, back up to the counter to get my now ready lemonade, weird way to do things.

       So how did all this taste once we finally got settled in and our food came to us? First, lets start with the scone. We ate this while we were waiting and it was delicious. Not at all dry and crumbly like a typical scone but rather soft and cake like with great flavors. In a REALLY quick manner our meals arrived;

      The food was very good,  my chicken sandwich was packed with meat and had the perfect amount of heat from the chipotle and smokiness from the bacon. As you can see wife's salad was HUGE, although I am not a big fan of cold salmon and to me it tasted a bit fishy. But the wife loved it and ate every drop. For $23.70, this place is a very good value for downtown Burlington. We left full and happy. And before I get nasty comments, I KNOW it's not local and I KNOW they truck in their food from all over the country and I KNOW they don't make everything fresh in house. But still, if you have to visit a fast/casual food place you could do ALOT worse.

On a scale of 1 to 5;

Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.
Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing

 Price,                And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     3.5  Very good food. With a very good variety, providing you want sandwiches or salads.
Beer and Wine,    NO  No beer and wine so no rating.
Service,                 2.5   Counter service only and it will be assumed you have been here before.

Ambiance,             3.0   Nice space but CROWDED. Be prepared to fight for a table.
Price,                     4.0   Very reasonable for downtown Burlington.

Overall,                 3.25  I am not a very big fan of the whole fast/casual food chains, but I must say this is

one of the better ones out there. If your in a hurry or just want something quick, you could do MUCH worse than this one. 

Casablanca Cafe Review

      As we were setting up the booth for the show, we realized it was well after noon and we suddenly were starving. As this particular day included 84 degree weather, with a slight ocean breeze and tropical blue skies, we decide to go outside and find a restaurant where we could eat overlooking the ocean. After a short walk, we noticed a large crowd at the Casablanca, so we stood in line to wait for a table. There was a big crowd sitting on the patio watching the ocean so when the Hostess said would you like to sit on the balcony we said sure, thinking we were getting on the patio. Instead she led us into the restaurant, up a spiral staircase and out onto a tiny 2nd story balcony holding three tables, SCORE, we had the end table, facing the ocean and getting a wonderful breeze in our faces, who said blind luck was overrated.

      Soon our server appeared and offered us some exotic drinks, but since I was working, I went with a Balik Gold beer instead. Perfect for a hot, sultry day. And for lunch, a thinly shaved, lamb sandwich, served on a warm pita bread, (OK, it was a gyro, why don't you just say so) and a nice Mediterranean salad. The lamb was perfectly seasoned and very tender. The salad nice and crisp with some great feta cheese on top. All in all, a perfect lunch plate for $9.99. And the view was incredible.

Food,                     4.0     Great flavors, nicely put together. 

Beer and Wine,    4.0     Nice beer and wine selections, reasonably priced (for Florida anyways).

Service,                 3.75   Waiter was not overly talkative but very efficient and the hostess got us a great table.

Ambiance,             4.5      All I can say is see the pictures.

Price,                     4.5      Probably the most reasonable place in all of Fort Lauderdale.

Overall                  4.15 This was a great find and would be one of my go to spots if I lived in Fort Lauderdale. If you are in the area, do yourself a favor and stop by.

Cooking 101: Carribean Pork Sliders

      Sometimes simple is best, especially when you are talking about making supper on a week night, when one partner is coming home from a hard days work and the other partner leaves for work at 11PM. Those are the nights that simple works best, and if you can throw something in the slow cooker (crockpot for those of us born a LONG time ago), first thing in the morning, and have a hot flavorful supper when you get home, Life is Good !! This meal starts with a pork loin and a marinade I wish I could remember where I bought, most likely Costco's as it's a big honkin bottle. The marinade is;

       Add pork loin (or loins if feeding a crowd or you want leftovers and you WILL want leftovers) to the slow cooker. Add enough marinade and chicken stock, ( I went 50/50) to cover the loins. An optional step, if you are so inclined, would be to get your grill red hot and sear the pork on all sides, this will add an extra dimension of flavor to the dish, but if your in a hurry just chuck em into the cooker. Throw in a few pineapple slices, attach the lid, set on low and walk away. Just a quick aside, if you have the time to sear, I would encourage it, I did this recipe both ways and the nice brown crunchy bits add alot of flavor and texture when you shred the pork. One other tip, they make slow cooker liners, and these have been a GODSEND for all these recipes, they make clean up a breeze, well worth the investment.

      Set your cooker on low and let it go for 3-6 hours. At this point you will have very flavorful pork and some incredible sauce. Remove the pork and start shredding, it will be so tender it shreds easily. Pour the liquid into a heavy duty saucepan and start boiling, keep your eye on it though cuz if it boils too long it will end up being a very thick syrup (we almost made that mistake). Here is a plate of deliciousness;

      And to serve with this delight, well a Tropical Mango smoothie of course. I found some smoothie mixes in the freezer of our local grocery store, one of which became this great drink with the addition of some mango and coconut rums and a bit of mango juice;

      And now to put it all together, you saved some pineapple slices right? Grill the slices and some rolls topped with butter until both form a nice crust. Top the shredded pork with the sauce you reduced and assemble, one roll, one pineapple slice and a big helping of shredded pork. We baked some fries in the oven and VOILA;

      Once again, a relatively easy prep makes a great evening supper. And to top it off this pork is incredible the next day, so PLEASE make extra.

Tofflers Pub and Grill Review

       Our second stop on the pub and brewery tour, Tofflers, only fit half the bill. No on site brewery, but a bar full of New Glarus Brewery beers made us happy, happy, especially after hours of walking the Farmers market, (see previous post on market and stay tuned for future post on Brewery itself). Since we had walked and sampled our way around the Farmers market and planned on cooking all our goodies that night, we just wanted a quick, light meal, RIGHT, in Wisconsin there is no such thing.

      We started with New Glarus beers, Fat Squirrels (nice nut brown ale with great flavors but not too heavy) and Two Women ( a classic country lager, very crisp and refreshing). Just a quick aside , we sampled many of their beers but I do not believe we ever tried their most famous beer The Spotted Cow. So on with the ordering , I chose the roast beef sandwich with, once again, homemade chips (really what is it with homemade chips in Wisconsin? Though I will say, sometimes you just get sick of french fries), Dean also had a sandwich , the name of which escapes me now and both women went for the Cobb Salad, as the picture's clearly show, light was not what we got , Tasty yes, light NO!!;

      Once again a trend is appearing here. Wisconsin pubs (or wait is it a bar? I am going with pub cuz the food is so good), serve some damn, tasty food. My sandwich was incredible, maybe one of the best ever. Slow braised beef had been hand pulled apart and piled high on a kaiser roll, with Swiss cheese and horseradish sauce on the side. The sauce was GREAT not only on the sandwich but perfect for dipping the chips in (LALALALA not listening, I am on vacation). Once again chips were crisp, fresh and salty, The salads were gigantic as you can see and made with fresh ingredients. Everyone loved the meal and once again this is the type of local place I wish we had in our town.

       One quick note, the main reason we were in New Glarus, was because of their incredible bakery and next door meat shop. We stopped to pick up some home made potato rolls for the brats which we picked up at the meat store. These are the kinds of great, small places you find all over Wisconsin, LOVE IT !! Last of the New Glarus pics followed by our review;

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.

Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing 

Price,                 And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4.5 Actually no faults at all, other than it is bar food, but REALLY good bar food

Beer and Wine,    3.  What is there is good but not alot of choices
Service,                 4.5 The staff here was great.

Ambiance,             3.5 Again, its a bar so not much atmosphere but still clean and nice.

Price,                     4    Price was very reasonable for what we ate.

Overall;                3.90  Another great find, this pub tour is starting to work out great.