Taqueria Olgy in Pensacola
Some of our friends have no idea what life is like in places like Qatar and Kuwait, it’s like they think we lived in tents in the desert. They don’t know about all the sky scraping apartment blocks, the spacious villas – and they don’t know about the ubiquity of take-out food and good restaurants. We could find almost everything we wanted, and reveled in the variety, the only thing we could not get was genuine Mexican food. You could go to Chili’s or Taco Bell, but for the real deal? No where.
So in Pensacola, we are blessed to have several very good Mexican restaurants, the Cal-Mex and the Tex-Mex kind, where sour cream and lettuce and guacamole bless every plate, but every now and then, we look for where the Mexicans are eating – and we found a new one, well, new to us, and not too far away.
Taqueria Olgy is in a small strip mall just south of Beverly on “W” street. It’s the first mall on your left as you drive south and you had better keep your eyes wide open or you will miss it; the signage is not that significant.
Inside, it is very spacious, maybe two strip mall sections that have merged, lots of booths, and lots of loyal customers. The menus are in English, and there are photos everywhere to help you choose. We were there at lunch and had the lunch specials. I haven’t had a chile relleno for a long time, so I choose the #1 special, a chili relleno and a taco (you could choose the kind of meat) Al Pastore. Oh YUMMMMM.
AdventureMan had the taco plate and said his was also really good. He liked it so much that while I was with the group last week, he went back and had the soup of the day and the #1 chile relleno with taco that I had.
We are still huge Taco Rock fans, but hey, it’s August, the temperatures are in the soaring and searing mode, and Taqueria Olgys is also well air conditioned. We feel so blessed to have such great authentic places to choose from.
Now, if only a good Ethiopian restaurant would come to Pensacola . . . 😉
Total WOW at Pot Roast And Pinot
So Pot Roast and Pinot has been open for months now, and although we have heard good things, we couldn’t bring ourselves to go. We hear the food is wonderful. People rave about it. But . . . pot roast? Pot roast is that tasteless Sunday dish anyone can make, stringy meat, watery gravy . . . hmmmmm, no, that doesn’t sound good to me, nor to AdventureMan.
But one day I said “we really have to go, so we can have an informed opinion” and we both kept coming up with alternatives, we were so unenthusiastic. Then, AdventureMan googled the Menu at Pot Roast and Pinot and his opinion shifted. “We should go,” he said, “We should give them a try. Their menu is interesting.”
As we entered, we mentally groaned. It’s all hard surfaces and hard chairs and a hard looking bench along one set of windows. The chairs are not actually hard to sit in, and that is good, because service is relaxed, i.e. slow. They aren’t slow in a bad way, they let you take your time ordering, they don’t rush you. We spend longer at Pot Roast and Pinot than we spend in other restaurants (and we have eaten there twice now). It’s an urban feel, with an open kitchen.
It also gets crowded fast. We’ve been once for lunch, once for dinner, and this is a popular place. Both times, we ended up sitting at ‘high tops’ in chairs I have to climb up on and have difficulty dismounting gracefully.
Those are the negatives.
The meals, the preparation and the presentation overcome the negatives. The food at Pot Roast and Pinot is ripe with robust flavors.
This is what it looks like mid-day inside. I love the frosted windows that let in the light but hide the traffic outside on Cervantes.
This is the sign on the outside, as well as the logo on their glass. I think they need to be more specific for most people – many won’t guess that it is supposed to be a Pot Roast and Pinot.
Here is their signature soup, and our first hint of the delights to come – Tomato Florentine Soup. It hits your mouth with a burst of flavor, the ripest intense tomatoes, basil, spinach, it’s all there with some mild but enhancing herbs. A Total WOW.
My starter was a beet salad, and another ‘oh, WOW.’ Thick, meaty slices of red beets AND a golden beet, woven together, a smokey tomato, very tasty, and a smokey vinaigrette dressing, with a sprinkle of a mild goat cheese. This salad was a rich tapestry of perfectly blended ingredients.
My main course was a bowl of Gumbo, and this was one of the best Gumbos I have ever eaten. It was a very manly treatment of Gumbo, thicker than most, a rich thick brown roux binding it all together with great big shrimp and spicy bites of andouille and every bite as flavorful as the last. This was so filling, I couldn’t even eat half of it, and I had the rest at night for dinner. It was just as delicious for dinner as it was for lunch. It had a beautiful garnish of deep fried okra on top, wasted on me, as I am not a big fan of okra, but I appreciate the effort and the artistry 🙂
AdventureMan was in heaven. He ordered the grilled vegetables. He got a plate glistening with a great variety of vegetables, each more luscious than the previous. He said he would order this dish again in a heartbeat, it was so good.
We had them pack up our leftovers so we could split a dessert. I love love love the drip-free container for my Gumbo. The lid fits tightly and doesn’t spill a drop, wooo hooooo!
The Creme Brulee’ changes from day to day, and this day was chock full of huge blueberries. It was perfectly crisped, not burned, with a smooth interior. Magnificent!
When we went back, it was night (not good for photos) and crowded (not good for photos) and we were with friends (not a good time to take food photos) but the food was equally good. One friend actually ordered the pot roast, of which he ate EVERY bite and declared it very tasty, and another ordered the Surf and Turf special, which was also perfectly prepared.
One friend is totally Gluten Free, and appreciated the goodly number of gluten free options on the menu. She has to be very careful what she eats; when she had questions, the waitstaff were very helpful at getting confirmations for her.
We all enjoyed the Chocolate Mousse for dessert, and I think as much as I like their Creme Brulee’, I am totally hooked on their Chocolate Mousse!
Pedestrian name; world class flavor. Forget the name, go for the flavors. There is no place like this in Pensacola.
Golden Palace: Packed When Tudo’s Closes
We were on the way to get my foot x-rayed and AdventureMan had promised me lunch at one of my favorite places in Pensacola, Tudo’s. When we arrived, the parking lot was empty – that’s not a good sign. There was a notice on the door that the restaurant was closed for ‘new equipments,’ and would open again soon.
We’ve seen Golden Palace (I love that on their website they have steam wafting up from the Pho), two doors north of Tudo’s several times, but you know, you feel sort of disloyal to your favorite restaurant when you try another of the same genre, but especially if they are so closely located. But now we could give it a try, guilt-free.
The place was packed. There was a line. We chatted with the woman in front of us who said she had also intended to eat at Tudo’s – I am guessing most of the clientele were people who would otherwise be eating at Tudo’s. Lucky day for Gholden Palace 🙂
We started with soup, and the soup was tasty, rich in flavor, delicious:
I tried the shrimp with lemongrass, and it was very nice, very generous with the shrimp, I couldn’t eat it all:
AdventureMan had the salad rolls, full of BBQ pork, also very tasty:
Golden Palace is worth a visit. Tudo’s really has the Vietnamese-favorite-in-Pensacola medal all sewn up, but Golden Palace has its own merits. I was particularly impressed at the grace and efficiency with which they managed to serve a great many customers and keep them happy.
Red Robins: We Were So Bad
I told you how I wasted my hamburger and cholesterol calories on the burger at Tin Cow, but the problem was, it didn’t solve the yearning problem. I yearned for a totally tasty burger like . . . Red Robins.
Red Robin and I go way back – back to the dive on Lake Union, a bar that sold great burgers. You could walk to the Red Robin from campus, and the place was always full of hungry, thirsty students from the UW campus. I think the only food they sold was a burger and fries; probably you could have a cheeseburger if you wanted something extra. It wasn’t a restaurant. It was a bar.
Today’s Red Robin is so much more a restaurant, and holy smoke, the selections. At least fifteen kinds of burgers, and then also chicken, veggy burgers and fish. Salads. You can get anything.
But what I wanted was a hamburger. I settled on a new one, the Smoke N’ Pepper. It was as good as my normal favorite the A1 Burger, maybe a little better.
This is what the Red Robin photo online looks like:
This is what mine looked like, and yes, sadly, we also ordered the onion rings – look at those onions! And the batter is crisp and thin! (I only ate two and a half.)
AdventureMan had the Whiskey River Burger, another old favorite, with a delicious BBQ Sauce.
It was SO good. The other good thing is that when we left, we were on total beef overload. We don’t eat a lot of red meat, and it just clogs your system. We still felt full at dinner time, and just had a half sandwich when we were hungry enough. Even the next day, I thought I would never be hungry again; beef takes a long time to digest. But oh, while we were so bad, those hamburgers were so GOOD.
Flounders at Pensacola Beach, Revisit
Pensacola Beach gets crazy this time of year – and what is not to love? Days of sunshine, surf temperature in the 80’s, and fine white sand, really white – it’s gorgeous.
If the Blue Angels are flying, or if it’s the 4th of July weekend, we can forget about the beach – the traffic over the bridges to the beach is blocked for miles. When the Blue Angels were flying, we could see the traffic backed up all the way to Cervantes, in central Pensacola. People were gridlocked on the bridge, and just watched from there – there were no more parking spots, none, out on Pensacola Beach.
But the madness has passed, normal times have returned, and I have a yearning for Flounder’s Fish Tacos. Ahhhhh, comfort food, with so much lettuce and tomato and salsa that it SEEMS healthy, even though the fish is undeniably . . . umm . . . . er . . .. fried.
These are listed in the appetizer section. Who on earth could eat this as an appetizer? At my hungriest, I can eat two, and still have one to take with. But so delicious, so perfect for a hot summer day.
AdventureMan has the seafood platter, which he loves, and he, too, has plenty to take home, the portions are so huge.
Life is sweet – we found a parking place close to Flounders and while it was a drizzly day, it didn’t rain on us. Flounders was full of people, but not so packed we had to wait for a table. Service was, as always, fast, fun, efficient and very welcoming – they are so attentive, no matter how busy.
We left happy, and once my fish taco meter starts going up again, we will head back.
The Macaroni Grill in Pensacola, FL
For the most part, AdventureMan and I stay away from national chains. One time in the last couple of years we tried Olive Garden, and, like many of the chains, they had gone to using “pre-formed” meats – how do you think they got all those dishes to look so uniform?
But Macaroni Grill is – or was, it’s all unclear now – a part of the Outback Chain, and Outback will always have a place in my heart because of their open-handed support when I worked for an educational foundation, raising money for scholarships. They were a joy to work with, and so generous to our scholarship recipients.
So we decided to give the Macaroni Grill a try. Here is what the entry at the Cordova Mall looks like.
I had the Caesar Salad, which was very good, fresh, great dressing:
I also had the Chicken Marsala, which had three chicken cutlets, real chicken, not pre-formed, not identical, with angel hair pasta. The Marsala sauce had barely a hint of Marsala, but it was pretty good. I’d prefer a little more Marsala taste. It was plentiful, and I had enough left over for dinner, too.
AdventureMan had the lasagna, which he said was really good! His portion was so huge, he also had enough for dinner and I don’t think he was able to finish it, there was so much.
Service was prompt and efficient. We asked the server if all the food was prepared here, or prepared elsewhere and sent semi-prepared, and she said, with great pride, that all the food was prepared daily, on-site. You could see into the open kitchen, and chefs and assistants were back there busily preparing meals – all a good sign.
We probably won’t go back, just because there are two or three other Italian places in town we like better, but it is a perfectly decent restaurant with above average food, very clean, good service and convenient if you are at the Cordova Mall.
The Tin Cow on Palafox in Pensacola
It’s not a bad place. The service is fabulous. The restaurant is often packed, and has something for everyone.
I have one complaint. I don’t often eat hamburger, so I saved my July hamburger to eat at Tin Cow, which I had heard totally majored in hamburgers.
Here is the interior on a busy Saturday – and. thanks to the renaissance of downtown Pensacola, it looks like every Saturday is a busy Saturday, and that is a good thing. We got there early, within half an hour every table was taken and people were lined up outside to get in. Here is what it looks like inside, before every table is taken:
They have a great menu for children, children are welcome and well taken care of. Another positive for the restaurant – we saw people of all generations and genders there, all having a great time, all enjoying the Tin Cow experience.
They have a huge menu. There is a have-it-exactly-your-way menu, where you pick every little thing, and then there are about thirty hamburger theme choices, and for the vegetarians or non-beef eaters, there are alternatives. Truly, there is something for everyone. It can be almost overwhelming, but truly, you should be able to find something to order.
Here is AdventureMan’s hamburger and fries. The fries were good.
I had a hamburger and salad. The salad was really good, notably good because it was just a little side salad but really good.
Everything was good – except for our hamburgers. As we ate, we looked at each other in dismay. The burgers weren’t even grilled, they were maybe fried, and had no taste other than the condiments. I was especially dismayed; what? I had wasted all my beef calories and cholesterol on a mediocre hamburger?
It must be us. We love the burger at Apple Annies, at the Seville Quarter, and at Red Robin. We think Sonny’s has a pretty good burger. But the Tin Cow is supposed to specialize in burgers, and this one was one big disappointment. I hate to even write this review, because to us, everything else was so good, especially the service. But . . .
“Perfect!” The Bridge Restaurant in Anchorage
Language changes, and usage changes, and one of the differences I heard on this trip was an increasing use of the word “Perfect!”
We had eaten at Mooses Tooth (see below) and we wanted to change up the pace for our last night in Anchorage, finishing with really really good seafood in Anchorage. We decided on The Bridge, and we decided to make reservations.
“I’d like a reservation for two at seven o-clock” I said and the lady taking the reservation said “Perfect!”
She asked our name and I told her and she said “Perfect!”
Our name is perfect? That we gave her our name is perfect? That she wrote it down perfectly?
I told her we would see her at seven and she said . . . well, you can guess what she said:
“PERFECT!”
It took us a missed exit and some driving around to actually find The Bridge, and oh, what fun. It is in the downtown most part of downtown Anchorage, on the banks of the river, spanning the river.
There are a lot of parking lots with limited parking, limited to like two hours because they have so many people wanting to fish in this river. At seven at night, this river was PACKED. The river was packed with people, fishing! They had gorgeous weather, and the fish were biting.
This is the kitchen at The Bridge:
And this is a view of a part of the interior. There are a variety of seating areas; this area was for those who had reservations. There was seating on a patio, but this is a very brightly lit place on a hot, sunshiney day, and I am glad to be inside, out of the hot sun, hot sun at seven at night – it’s the equinox.
We loved this restaurant, and while we had many wonderful experiences on this trip, this would be one of my first choices going back. It’s a little off the beaten trail, (although we saw two tables of eight reserved for Orvis fisherpeople) and the people who worked there seemed to really love working there. At least half of the people were from Anchorage.
We ordered the Smoked Salmon Pate, not realizing we would also get more pate with our bread. The Bridge is like that; it gives you more than you expect. Sorry for the high contrast photos; there is a lot of bright sun I am working with here.
AdventureMan also ordered crab legs, not realizing they came on the appetizer buffet you get with the full meal, which we ordered. We ordered too much food for our last night in Anchorage, when it didn’t make sense to take food back with us.
The Bridge has a fabulous appetizer buffet.
For his main course, AdventureMan had the grilled halibut, which he says was the best on his entire trip:
And I could not resist ordering The Bridge’s Alaska Cioppino – I am a sucker for Cioppino, and this was exquisite.
They also had rhubarb crisp as a dessert, but I could not even think about eating another bite. Next time I hit The Bridge, I will start with the Rhubarb Crisp 🙂
The Bridge is only open for the summer season. It is a total WOW.
It was (you guessed it!) “PERFECT!”
Salmon Bake Restaurant in Seward
“You’ll find the Salmon Bake restaurant just past the turn to Exit Glacier”, the guide said, and we laughed at the Exit Glacier Exit. The Salmon Bake restaurant was near our hotel, and handy after an all-day excursion out to the Seward fjiords.
When AdventureMan asked me what the best meal of the trip was, I had to think – there were several very good meals. But head and shoulders above the rest – and I apologize now that there are no photos – was this meal. Was it because we had spent the day in the great outdoors and were so hungry? Maybe a little. But when the waitress showed up with the big bowl of steaming clams loaded with garlic, I was ecstatic. So simple, so perfectly cooked, and so delicious! Accompany that wine and parsley broth with a boule of sourdough bread and I surrender. Those clams were the best dish I had the entire trip.
The salmon that followed was extraordinary. Mostly, I like salmon served grilled; I don’t like it baked in sauces and I sure don’t like it with cheese. This salmon had a mildly teriyaki glaze, a great grilled flavor and was cooked perfectly, still soft and moist on the inside. It was superb.
We split a blueberry cobbler because the food was so good, and it came out hot with a ball of vanilla ice cream on top – it was perfect.
The interior is all Alaskan rustic. If I had to criticize, I would say that it was annoying having my water served in a Mason jar; I’m not into country and I’ve never liked that jar thing. The food was so exceptional, however, that the criticism is petty and tiny compared to how good the food was.
The Salmon Bake restaurant fills up fast. As we left, there were several groups waiting. Get there early or have reservations; the Salmon Bake Restaurant is only open Mid-May through September.
The Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ on the Road to Seward
We’d forgotten to think about lunch. We had eaten all our Japanese crackers, the kind you can’t eat on the plane or the smell will make all the other passengers sick, and we still have a couple hours drive ahead of us to Seward where we are going out again to see glaciers and wildlife.
And then, we go past the Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ. We pull up at Turnagain House, a finer restaurant, but it is not open and we drive about half a mile back to the BBQ. As we open our car doors, we are so glad to be there. It smells like home, it smells like Pensacola, BBQ.
Turnagain Arm is the area we are driving through, so Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ is a clever play on words. This is what it looks like from the road:
This is what it looks like when you walk in:
This is the Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ Menu – it’s a little pricey, but hey, it’s Alaska, and you don’t fine real pit BBQ everywhere. Everything is imported . . . and there are not a lot of restaurants along the highway to Seward. . .
AdventureMan ordered his favorite, pulled pork. It was delicious, but a little fatty. The sauce was great:
I ordered the mixed plate, I ordered it because of the chicken, which I saved to eat later and then, oh aaarrgh, I forgot it. . .
The scenery along this highway is fantastic. I didn’t take a lot of photos because we really wanted to get to Seward:
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