Archive for "Food and Drink"
Our Dinner at Deck 84
Posted on April 4, 2021 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
We passed by Deck 84, a cute restaurant next to the water, on our walk to the beach. The visitor’s center had 10% OFF cards for the restaurant so that kind of clinched the deal. I wanted to check it out anyway because it reminded me so much of Skipper’s Dock, so the discount was just icing on the cake.
PRO SAVINGS TIP: When visiting a new place, always swing by the visitor’s center because they usually have all sorts of coupons and deals.
Here’s a picture of Deck 84 from the Atlantic Avenue bridge.
One of the neat things about this restaurant is that you can dock your boat and grab a quick bite. I suppose there are probably many places like this in Florida but it seemed notable to me as we don’t really have places like these in Wichita.
If you’ve been fishing, they’ll even cook your catch for you!
We came on foot, rather than by boat, but we had to take a dock selfie.
We decided to sit outside to enjoy the beautiful weather as well as the view of the fancy yachts and various other boats cruising on by.
The two sides of the bridge occasionally part to allow the bigger boats passage. And then as soon as the bridge is back together, you’d see a steady stream of people walk across. We saw it happen a few times while we were dining. It’s really neat.
With COVID, a lot of restaurants really aren’t doing physical menus any longer. Most places have QR codes on the table that you can scan with your phone to view their menu online. Deck 84 was no different. However, they didn’t have a paper menu with daily specials.
Here’s a picture of that drink listed at the bottom called “The Siren.” I’m not a huge fan of paying $13 for a drink but I figured what the heck. We’re on vacation.
I ordered the shrimp mac n’ cheese for dinner.
Brian ordered a basket of fries and the empanada listed on the paper menu.
The empanada was not what we expected. I think Brian was expecting something like a Mexican empanada. This one had a strange filling. It was almost like a shepherd’s pie wrapped in an empanada. Brian said it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t good either. LOL.
Our server explained that they normally have the Mexican kind but they made special empanadas for St. Patrick’s Day and they didn’t realize that was the kind they had on the menu. Brian and I wondered if these were leftover from St. Patrick’s Day and they were trying to get rid of them. It was an unpleasant thought but a clever way to get rid of excess food inventory.
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After we had this conversation, Brian decided he liked the empanada even less. I mean, we were there on a Friday — two whole days after St. Patty’s Day. It seemed kind of gross. It really sucked because, up until this point, we were really enjoying our Deck 84 experience. I liked my mac n’ cheese and my drink was pretty good (expensive, but that’s how much drinks are at nice restaurants are — unless you happen to be there for happy hour) and the service wasn’t bad. Maybe they weren’t leftover empanadas and we’re just imagining all of it.  |
 Outside of the empanada thing, I really liked the place. I liked that they are super dog-friendly and even have a special menu just for your fur-babies. They have an entire section on this on their website with an extensive list of dos and don’ts for pet owners (I’m assuming, because dogs don’t know how to read or own phones). Based on the list of chef-prepared dog entrees, I’m guessing these pooches are quite spoiled. |
Overall, I’m glad we stopped here for early dinner. Brian might feel differently but I actually liked what I got and I thought it was a neat experience. Whenever I’m out of town, I’m always looking to dine at places that aren’t available at home. Deck 84 checks that box for sure. Until next time. GNG.
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Happy Hour at El Camino
Posted on March 29, 2021 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
Brian and I really liked El Camino. It was our first stop when we arrived in Delray Beach because we were both starving from the trip.
El Camino has great happy hour menu but we were so hungry we decided to order off the regular menu instead.
The food was pretty good. I enjoyed my tacos and black beans.
But I enjoyed my blood orange margarita best of all.
Brian enjoyed the hot sauce. Maybe a little too much.
More about our recent trip next time. Until then, GNG.
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First Time at the Belmont (and Frost)
Posted on March 28, 2021 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Brian and I finally got a chance to check out the Belmont. The place is so popular that it is extremely hard to get in during regular hours. The times that we’ve tried to eat there, the wait has been too long and so we’d never been until now. The funny thing is, we didn’t even plan to eat there. We were out for a drive on a beautiful day and on the hunt for root beer floats. We decided to go to TJ’s since we were at Seneca Park but we were too late. I’d forgotten that they close at 2 PM on Sundays.
Plan B was to get our root beer float fix at Ziggy’s. Ziggy’s also has great root beer floats. But on the way there, we saw that the Belmont wasn’t busy so we ended up ditching the root beer float plan and going for happy hour instead.
We’d never been able to get in before so we decided to take advantage of this opportunity. It ended up costing us more than what it would have cost us had we stuck to our original plan because we also got a cheese board but happy hour at the Belmont is actually really good. They have $8 pitchers of beer and their cocktails, which are normally $10, are only $6 during happy hour.
I really wanted to try all six cocktails but Brian wouldn’t let me. Since I could only have two, I decided to try the first two on the list: Calumet and Daylight.
Even though both drinks were very good, I liked Calumet (pictured above) best out of the two. Daylight (pictured below) was yummy too but was a bit tart.
Here’s a picture of our cheese board.
When they brought out our check, they also brought out a couple of cookies. One was oatmeal raisin and the other was snickerdoodle. I’m not a fan of snickerdoodle cookies but this one was really good. Hands down, the best snickerdoodle cookie I’ve ever tasted. The experience made me realize that I probably don’t like snickerdoodle cookies because I’ve only ever had bad ones before.
Our server told us that the cookies were homemade by the Frost people next door. As it happened to be Pi Day (March 14), we decided to walk over to Frost to get a piece of pie. However, they were overrun and were completely out of pie (except for pecan flavor, which Brian doesn’t like). We ended up with a slice of chocolate cake instead. You can never go wrong with chocolate cake.
Here are a few pictures we took at Frost. They’ve only been open a few months and we’d really not even heard of them had it not been for our server mentioning it. Frost is totally worth checking out if you’re ever in the College Hill area.
I guess that’s all for now. Until next time. GNG.
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Dinner at Oak & Pie
Posted on March 12, 2021 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Here are some pictures from our last dinner at Oak & Pie.
Meatballs and Oink Baby pie are our usual there.
I had the drink of the week – Mermaid Mimosa – because I always like to try the new drinks they come up with.
This strawberry shortcake dessert tasted better than it looked.
That’s all for now. Until next time. GNG.
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Final Dinner in Phoenix
Posted on March 2, 2021 by Ching under Food and Drink.
We were supposed to go to some place called Barrio Queen but due to a bit of miscommunication we ended up at BJ’s Brewhouse at the Desert Ridge shopping center. I didn’t mind it either way. I love Mexican food so I didn’t mind going to Barrio Queen. When we ended up at BJ’s, I was fine with it too. BJ’s is one of those reliable chains that has something for everyone. I think Karen was a tad disappointed because she wanted to go somewhere that we didn’t have in Wichita but we weren’t likely to get in on such short notice.
Besides we had a wonderful time at dinner. I got to meet her sister in law Martha (Ted’s sister), her husband George, and their daughter Kristen. They were lovely and it was nice of them to pick us up from our hotel and take us to dinner. And, I really appreciated them letting me tag along.
Here are some pictures of our food…
On the way back to our hotel after dinner, we drove through this area called High Street. It’s really neat with lots of interesting shops and restaurants. Other than that, we called it an early evening and spent the night packing and getting ready for the trip home. The weekend went by much too quickly.
Now that PPA Arizona is behind me, I’ve got my sights on APP Delray Beach Open in a few weeks. Brian will be traveling with me this time. I’m super excited and can’t hardly wait! Until then, GNG.
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