Tag Archives: key west

The Lobster Shack

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

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!

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.

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

American, Florida, Restaurant Reviews

DJ’s Clam Shack

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

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.

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!

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.

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

American, Florida, Restaurant Reviews

Half Shell Raw Bar

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

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.

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

Raw oysters:

Raw clams:

Steamed clams:

Mahi mahi fish dip:

Peel and eat shrimp:

And, of course, frozen drinks!

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.

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

Florida, Other, Restaurant Reviews

Better Than Sex

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

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

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.

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

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

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

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).

American, Florida, Restaurant Reviews

Camille’s

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Florida, Other, Restaurant Reviews

Croissants de France

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

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

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.

American, Florida, Product Reviews, Restaurant Reviews

Hurricane Hole

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Florida, Pizza

Clemente’s Trolley Pizzeria

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Nope. This was just a big failure. We likened it to Boboli. We were better off hitting Denny’s for our late night NYE food binge. The setting was cool enough, with a re-purposed trolley car as the kitchen, and large, old, wooden cable spools as tables.

There were even some “free range” chickens to play with.

But the “brick oven” pizza itself was small, over-priced ($20 for a small pie is retarded) and rubbery. Skip this place. There are better Duval Street pizza joints nearby.

American, Burgers, Florida, Restaurant Reviews

Louie’s Backyard

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

We decided to take in the water view for a quick lunch here at Louie’s Backyard in Key West. I went with a burger, which, here, is topped with provolone cheese, caramelized onions, roasted poblano peppers and sri racha aioli.

I didn’t get much heat from the aioli or peppers. The burger patty itself was nice, though cooked a little too much in my opinion. The steak fries were pretty good. I usually don’t like these, but they were very crispy.

My wife had this really interesting smoked salmon and egg brik turnover. The outer shell was light and crisp, and inside was a runny egg yolk and perfectly cooked salmon.

My buddy went with this really great duck confit dish. Super tender.

Definitely give this place a try if you’re in Key West. The bar outside is nice too, even if you don’t sit to eat.

Florida, Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Restaurant Reviews

Amigos Tortilla Bar

January 6, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This Key West spot is home to some of the best tacos I’ve ever had. For just $12 you get a platter of three tacos (choose hard shell, round soft flour or square soft corn) with sides of rice and beans.

I went with carnitas (spiced pork meat), baja fried fish and shrimp. The carnitas was a bit salty, but it was packed with juicy flavor.

The seafood tacos are topped with a really nice fresh cheese, as you can see on this shrimp taco:

But by far the best taco of the three was this baja fried fish taco. The golden crisp on the outside of the fish was light and crunchy – not bready at all. So fresh and delicious.

The rice and beans are standard issue – tasty.

My wife ordered this baja fried fish bowl, which is an amazing deal for just $9.

The place also serves up some killer nachos and roasted corn. You MUST try the roasted corn, even if it is the only thing you end up trying here. Fucking absurdly good.