Category Archives: Restaurant Reviews

Monsieur Paul

Epcot Center in Disney World is famed for its “world walk,” highlighting about a dozen countries and offering some cuisine and culture from each. This place, in the French pavilion, is known to be one of the better places to eat in the park.

DSC00334

My wife scored us some reservations in advance of our trip, and I was looking forward to trying the steak selections.

First off, the bread at this place is amazing. You can choose from about four different kinds: mushroom onion bread, Swiss cheese bread, traditional baguette, poppy seed, etc.

DSC00343

DSC00344

DSC00348

My wife and I each had a price fix menu. For $89, we received the following:

DSC00338

DSC00380

The escargot was great. It had the texture of clams and a great truffle essence.

DSC00346

For my starter, I went with the oxtail soup. It was okay – not as robust in flavor as I hoped, but the use of truffle was generous, and the popover on top of the soup bowl was magnificent. French cuisine is great for shit like this.

DSC00350

DSC00352

My wife went with the lobster item, which came with a truffle broth, quail egg and some fancy foam.

DSC00349

DSC00358

DSC00356

For my entree, I went with the strip steak. It was cooked perfectly to medium rare. My only gripe is that I like my steak seared hard on the outside with a crust, whereas this was served almost like a sous vide style. It was still excellent though. I’d say an eight out of ten.

DSC00373

DSC00368

It came with some tomatoes, potatoes and asparagus:

DSC00371

And a nice truffle wine reduction sauce for the top:

DSC00378

My wife’s lamb rib chop was crusted with pistachio, and also cooked absolutely perfectly.

DSC00364

DSC00365

Some other guests at the table ordered the filet, which was equally delicious and nicely prepared. On top is a mushroom and bacon mash of some kind.

DSC00360

La Myrtille is a short bread base with a pistachio cake, topped with fresh blueberries and compote, vanilla cream, and creme fraiche ice cream. Not only was it beautiful, but it was the best dessert of the night, and we sampled a bunch from other plates. It was unique, and the right balance of sweet and savory for me. Perfect.

DSC00386

DSC00385

DSC00389

DSC00394

Here’s a look at the almond, mango yogurt and strawberry concoction that I also tried – pretty good!

DSC00387

And this was my wife’s dessert, L’ile Flottante, which was light meringue, vanilla creme Anglaise, rum raisons, toasted almonds and a vanilla tuile.

DSC00383

The Whiskey

For our first meal down in Orlando, my wife and I tried this whiskey- and burger- centric place for lunch.

DSC00117

They had something like 200 types of whiskey, rye and scotch. Impressive.

DSC00115_2

DSC00116

The food turned out to be pretty good, so let’s get right into it.

We started with some cocktails and an order of whiskey sauce wings.

DSC00122

The wings were pretty good. Not QUITE as crisp as I like, but the flavor was tangy, garlicky and sweet from the sauce.

DSC00120

I ordered “the whiskey” burger, which has smoked gouda, bourbon bacon, whiskey onions and a dill aioli. Pretty solid burger!

DSC00123

DSC00127

It was cooked to about medium well, despite my order of medium, but the burger was good and juicy from all the toppings.

DSC00129

I had the regular fries with my burger, which were crispy and well seasoned.

DSC00126

My wife ordered “the royal,” which was similar to mine, only with wagyu beef and garlic aioli.

DSC00125

Her’s was cooked to medium rare, nice and pinkish red throughout a thick patty.

DSC00131

She also went with truffle parmesan fries, which were a nice touch.

DSC00130

McSorley’s Old Ale House

McSorley’s Old Ale House is NYC’s first Irish bar, and it is a place known for limited options. For example, the clientele was limited to men from 1854 until 1970 when it was forced to allow women into the bar. Their motto was “Good Ale, Raw Onions and No Ladies.”

As far as beer goes, your options are limited to their proprietary “McSorley’s” dark beer or light beer. You get two mugs that are mostly filled for the price of one beer, chiefly because it is faster to pour two half-assed mugs than it is to properly pour a full mug while waiting for the head to settle on the beer.

While there, you should definitely man-up and try their infamous liverwurst and onion sandwich. If you’re really feeling manly, spread some of that super spicy – and likely dirty – dijon mustard onto the bread. The stuff graces each table.

mcsorleys

Quick story about the wishbones on the light fixture above the bar: They were hung by guys getting ready to deploy in WWI. If they came back they took down a wishbone and made their wish. The ones that didn’t make it back; their wishbone remains on the light fixture. Special thanks to BG for that bit of info.

Also gave the burger a try. For $8 this is a steal!

MCSORLEY’S OLD ALE HOUSE
15 E. 7th St.
New York, NY 10003

The Lobster Shack

This little hole-in-the-wall in Key West serves up one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve ever had. A lobster grilled cheese!

20160102_122934

DSC09867

Essentially it is the meat they use for their lobster rolls, but slapped between two buttery toasted sliced of bread and covered with melted cheese. Fucking insanely buttery and delicious. I could eat this every day!

The lobster rolls are pretty good too. We went with the diablo roll, which has a spicy sri racha and jalapeno kick to it.

DSC09864

20160102_122930

Definitely get to this place if you’re ever in Key West. Look for the lobster cut out:

DSC09863

DJ’s Clam Shack

The owner of Kingston’s on Long Island opened up shop down in Key West with this little shack on the main strip of Duval Street.

20160103_203826

DSC09927

DSC09928

The menu is really basic: mostly fried seafood baskets with a lobster roll to boot. The lobster rolls here is pretty great – lots of really good lump claw meat!

DSC09932

My wife and I tried the cracked conch and clam strips, both of which were nicely batter-fried and served on a bed of seasoned crinkle-cut french fries.

DSC09929

DSC09931

I enjoyed it. I’d definitely hit this place again if I’m ever in Key West.

pixlr-01 (1)

Half Shell Raw Bar

My wife found a happy hour deal for this place down in Key West: half price drinks and shellfish from 4:30 to 6:30.

DSC00012

We made it by about 6:00pm and put in a shitload of the available shellfish items. Everything was really good!

Raw oysters:

DSC00029

Raw clams:

DSC00028

Steamed clams:

DSC00023

Mahi mahi fish dip:

DSC00018

Peel and eat shrimp:

DSC00019

And, of course, frozen drinks!

DSC00016

The stone crabs are NOT on the happy hour deal, but we did try a few colossal and medium sized claws. Fucking amazing, and it comes with a really nice mustard-horseradish dipping sauce that works well with french fries.

DSC00031

When we were leaving we saw this cool Christmas tree made from crab and lobster traps. Very cool!

DSC00039

Better Than Sex

Better Than Sex is a dessert-only restaurant in Key West that’s known for it’s over-the-top sexual references.

DSC09916

That’s apparently supposed to be a black “member” entering a white booty. Classy!

Anyway I had a “peanut butter perversion,” which is a super soft peanut butter mousse cake with chocolate covered pretzel bark. REALLY good, but can get heavy despite the lightness of the mousse.

DSC09926

My wife had this banana crepe cake, which was really good as well.

DSC09925

We also shared this unique brie and chocolate grilled cheese. I liked this because it wasn’t as heavily sweet as the other items.

DSC09924

This place does a lot of interesting drinks too, like “rimmed” glasses of wine or root beer floats with chocolate and caramel:

DSC09922

DSC09921

The staff here is incredibly chipper. It is SO chipper that it will ruin your sex mood if that’s your goal for coming into this place. The server kept saying things like “super awesome,” and “girlfriend” (when talking with the ladies at the table).

Camille’s

We hit this Key West joint because it was well-rated on Trip Advisor for having a great bloody mary.

DSC09855

The awesome, friendly and very knowledgeable bartender, Al, mixed this wonderful shit up perfectly. It’s made with house-infused bacon vodka and a killer bloody mix that had both spice and meatiness.

DSC09852

We were so impressed that we came back for dinner that night to try the all-you-can-eat crab dinner.

DSC09912

Not bad, but like Prime Steakhouse here in Key West, it could be anywhere. The crabs were tasty, but they’re not local or fresh. I was hoping that they had some stone crabs on the menu.

Al recommended earlier that we try the artichoke dip. We weren’t that impressed. It was made with pickled artichokes I think, not fresh, so it had an awkward flavor and texture.

DSC09911

My wife’s mussels appetizer was massive. Big enough for an entree, and they were good to boot.

DSC09914

I also got to try this nice blueberry wheat beer as well:

DSC09910

Overall I’d say you should come here for a bloody, talk it up with Al and share some mussels. Skip the rest.

Croissants de France

We stopped by this Duval Street (Key West) joint for a biegnet, but we were somewhat let down.

DSC09943

20160103_135002

They were more like doughnuts than biegnets, but we at least tried one with a key lime filling to make it a bit better. Not like NOLA, that’s for sure.

20160103_135117

20160103_135226

20160103_135258-01

Hurricane Hole

This is a joint product/service and restaurant review. My buddies and I booked a small charter fishing trip off of Key West. For four hours it cost about $800 all-in (with tip and everything). While this is super expensive, it is worth every penny if you happen to be able to keep and eat everything that you catch.

20160101_135939

We started off catching all the bait we would use on the trip. Captain Brad threw out his net and picked up minnows and shiners. Then we went out about five miles for some yellow fin snapper and yellow jackets. One of my buddies even got a mackerel at this spot. I had a shark hooked at one point, but the fucker bit through the line and took my bait.

After a bit, we went to a second location off the shore where we picked up some bonita and tuna.

20160101_165530

20160101_155806(0)

20160101_160946

Over all we had a really successful day. I caught the most fish, while my buddy got the biggest (a 15lb tuna).

20160101_174025

20160101_173713

20160101_173738

Captain Brad filleted about half of our catch, which came out to roughly 14lbs.

20160101_175031

That’s a lot of fish! We could have packed it on ice and shipped it home, but we figured we may as well gorge on it and give the rest for chum and whoever else wanted the meat. We probably caught over $1000 worth of fish.

The restaurant at the dock will cook up all your food for $12 per person, and you get sides to go with it. We fed our whole gang of eight people with tons to spare.

20160101_190357

They did some fried snapper, tuna tataki, blackened tuna and buffalo mackerel. Everything was really good.

pixlr-01

The conch fritters here were pretty good too, which we ordered in addition to the fish feast.

20160101_181539