Flashpoint : food and wine

Service with a shrug

Brendan — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:28:00 GMT

By Brendan McLaughlin

Not long ago, my wife and I dined with another couple at a highly regarded South Tampa restaurant. I ordered a bowl of the lobster bisque to share. My wife ordered the Sea Bass with lobster sauce as her entrée. The bisque was a little gummy, but tasty. When the fish came, the “sauce” glopped on top looked exactly like the soup I’d just finished. One taste confirmed that it was the same stuff. It’s a soup! It’s a sauce! It’s a dessert topping! It’s a soothing ointment for scrapes and burns!

That’s the kind of thing that happens far too often in a metropolis the size of Tampa Bay. Yes, we have some well run and reliable chains and a few wonderful independents, but too often, the dining scene in the Bay Area is a gauntlet of expensive disappointments.

The problem is as often the service as the food. When I asked one server her preference between two choices of wine, she informed me she didn’t drink. That’s a legitimate lifestyle choice, but maybe selling vino isn’t the best career choice for her. How would the restaurant owner like it if instead of cash, I put a handful of metal washers in the check tray? “Sorry, I’m a Druid and as such, don’t participate in your society’s system of paper money or credit transactions. But keep the change!”

The problem is that Tampa Bay hasn’t yet reached the critical mass of fine dining that attracts the best and brightest to the food service industry. In cities like New York and San Francisco, waiting tables is an honorable profession. Servers take pride in knowing the ingredients in the dishes on the menu and how they’re prepared. Food servers here tend to be younger, part timers working their way up to a “real job”. We diners get no discount for that lack of experience.

Specialty coffee? Don’t get me started. Like millions of other Starbucks addicts, I consider paying $3.75 for a cup of coffee an affordable luxury. But the perception of indulgence only works if you truly believe that the baristas behind the counter have the skill and equipment to make something you can’t get at home. A Starbucks imitator that opened in my neighborhood some years back staffed the place with teenagers who didn’t know coffee from toffee. I was served a lukewarm cup of bitter espresso and milk without a trace of foam. Before handing it over, the kid behind the counter proudly added a coating of nutmeg that looked like potting soil. “Nice touch with the nutmeg”, I commented. “If you put some night crawlers in there, you and I could go fishing!” (Ever notice how sarcasm is wasted on teenagers?)

Before you think I’m trying to be a culinary Mr. Blackwell, understand that I toiled as a waiter and bartender for more years than I care to admit. That experience trained me to recognize good service, but at the same time, renders me incapable of stiffing a waiter no matter how heinous the treatment. A waiter would have to deliberately put a cigarette out on my neck to get less than 15 percent. Maybe it’s my own fault. More nutmeg, please!

Photo courtesy Getty Images

Mr. Natural's looking for a better deal

Brendan — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:45:00 GMT

By Brendan McLaughlin

One of the first things I do whenever I'm out of town is look for a Whole Foods market. I window shop the fresh fish, the grass-fed beef and the exotic plates of paella and squid ink pasta. On the flight home, my carry on luggage usually reeks of Basque sheep milk cheese. Since Whole Foods has deigned to open just a handful of stores in Florida- none of them in the immediate Bay Area, I'm forced to forage from a dozen different grocers- Fish from Land and Sea, produce from Fresh Market, flowers from Whaley's. That's a waste of gas.

Now the Publix supermarket chain is stepping up to challenge Whole Foods. You've probably seen the natural and organic "GreenWise" products segregated in their own aisles in your local Publix, but next year, several prototype GreenWise stores are scheduled to open in Boca, Vero Beach and Tampa. If the selection and service match Whole Foods, they may be on to something. My only gripe with Whole Foods is their expensive and overly specialized selection of everyday items like cleansers, paper products and non perishable foods. If GreenWise can offer something for the vegetarian, the gourmand and the penny pincher alike, Whole Foods may be in for a food fight.

A Taco made my weekend

Brendan — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:41:00 GMT

Add me to the long list of culinary explorers who discovered El Taconazo restaurant in Seminole Heights and became a zealot. The so-called “Taco Trailer” is located on Hillsborough Avenue just East of Nebraska in Tampa. They don’t have air conditioning, padded booths or margaritas. They do have the best tacos I’ve tasted in Florida.

El Taconazo may be a for-profit business serving food to strangers, but it’s clear the recipes were originally conceived as a gesture of love - my guess is from a madre to her ninos. How else to explain the finely crumbled white queso, the delicately chopped scallion and the sprinkling of fresh cilantro? The flavors in the green and red salsas compete with the heat and the flavors win by a nose. Their homemade refried beans will ruin you for the canned glop forevermore.

If you want six pounds of generic cheese and bean puree on a plate, there are any number of chain restaurants that will fill you up. But you’ll walk out of El Taconazo both full and satisfied. Thank me later.