No Thai Required

A couple of weeks ago, the hub mentioned to me that if he had only ever eaten Thai food in Florida, he would not like Thai food.

We've had some pretty bad Thai-ms since we've moved here. Which is a big darn shame because the hub and I love a good drunken noodle, a spicy dish of Pad Prik King.

So imagine our excitement when we saw a sign go up on Route One a couple of weeks ago: THAI HANA 2: COMING SOON. The restaurant is about 5 minutes from our house...in a real Thai emergency, we could walk there.

The restaurant opened last Friday night, and we were right there. Along with about 100 other people. The very nice hostess said that she could seat us, but it would be at least an hour before we could eat.

We left with mixed emotions..disappointment, of course, because I cannot eat dinner after 9:00 at night, and it was already after eight. But also pent-up excitement. The huge crowd of people surely were there because they were familiar with Thai Hana 1, we said in the car. It must be excellent, we enthused.

We went back last night. The parking lot was substantially less crowded. But it was a weeknight, so we didn't take that as a bad sign.

We were psyched.

The restaurant was welcoming, lined with booths and a nice mix of dark wood and a light space. The only odd part was the "theater" seats at the front of the restaurant. I understand that some folks like to watch the sushi artists make the rolls, but these seats and tables are about 15 feet away from the kitchen. So all they were really looking at was us. And worse...we were looking at them. I wouldn't want to sit there.

Before I get to the food, I have to mention the staff at the restaurant. As we were ushered to our booth, no less than four people welcomed us and thanked us for coming. The hub and I looked at each other--if the food was half as good as the staff, we were going to be Very Happy in a couple of minutes.

We started with a bowl of Tom Yum and one of Tom Ka. These soups are kind of the canary in a coal mine for us...if they're not good, the meal will not be good either. If they're excellent, the canary starts to sing.

My Tom Ka was good, but the Tom Yum was not completely yum. It was, in fact, a little bland. It didn't taste like lemon or tomato, or anything else really. It tasted like broth.

But not so bad that the canary was dead. He was just coughing a little.

We headed further down into the mine shaft.

We ordered two dishes: the first, Hot Basil with chicken. It sure sounded like Pad Prik King to us, although our waitress wasn't sure. The menu promised green beans, basil leaves, snow peas, and a very spicy sauce (it had the little asterisk next to the listing, in case we didn't notice the word "spicy" in the description).

The second dish was a house special, Pad Thai with lobster. We don't usually get Pad Thai because it's too pedestrian. But, given the amount of almost inedible Thai food we've had in the last few months (we had a Pad See Ew last week that is still coagulated in my stomach), we thought playing it safe might be in our best interest. And the idea of lobster mixed with noodles sounded pretty good.

The Pad Thai wasn't pretty good, but it was okay (which is really good, if you're grading on the Florida Thai Curve). It didn't taste like Pad Thais we've had in the past, but we soon adjusted to the taste and were happy with the firmness of the noodles, and the very small amount of peanuts (they were what they're supposed to be--an accessory to the main event). And who could say anything bad about the lobster...there was a ton of it, with big pieces of claw meat (in several instances, it was the whole claw).

We both decided that we didn't love it, but we could eat it again.

The Hot Basil, however, was a huge disappointment. It wasn't spicy (no asterisk required); in fact, it really didn't have much taste at all. If it tasted like anything, it had that vague stale taste of those tiny ears of corn. Now there are people who love those, and they might love this. But anyone who ordered the dish because it was purported to be spicy is going to be wondering if they have suddenly lost their sense of taste.

Of course, there were lots of things we didn't try. We didn't try any of the curries, so those could be better. And we didn't try the sushi, either.

All in all, we're definitely not going to race back there. But we're not going to avoid it either. The other day I met a man who moved to Florida from New York. He said that, once you're here a while, you start to forget how good the food used to be at home. You begin to lower your standards.

Maybe that's when I'll start to eat Thai again.

You Light Up My Life

I love Christmas. Last year, I had eight trees in my house.

This year, I have 3750 lights on my bed and breakfast (not including the icicle lights). To be honest, I was surprised by that number when we added up all of the boxes.

I had guessed it was closer to about 40,000.

Nights of Lights has begun in St. Augustine. If you haven't heard of it, don't worry...if you come to town from November 20 through January 31, you're not going to miss it. There are literally millions of tiny white lights everywhere. (We have heard rumors that you are NOT ALLOWED to use any colored lights, so we didn't. But I am tempted to use some on our outdoor tree and see if I'm really thrown into the Old Jail).

It's a great time of year, and it's wonderful to see so many people throw their recession fears aside and just ring up spool after spool after spool of lights down at the Home Depot.

The best way to see the Vegas-style town is to buy tickets on one of the trolleys--either the Holly Jolly Trolley Tour (904.829.3800) or Ripley's Big Red Christmas Train (904.824.1606). The Holly Jolly Trolley (which is just plain fun to say) is $23 for adults and $10 for kids, which gives you a pass for three days; Ripley's is $21.99 and $8.99.

Of course, for my money, you can't beat the FREE trolley ride offered by--guess who?--the Bayfront Marin House. If you stay two weeknights, you automatically get tickets. As they say, FREE is good.

The other thing that's good is the photo opportunities in the town right now. It's beautiful weather, and perfect for walking (or trolleying) and enjoying the romantic lights with your partner and your camera. The shot at right was taken by a professional photographer (duh); I snagged it off of a Florida tourism site (http://www.orlando-tours.com/). But bring a tripod, and your walking shoes (this shot is taken with a great zoom from Anastasia Island) and really--the city will do the rest.

I have to admit, I've never hung lights before in this kind of quantity (and technically, I didn't do it this year either. Brian and Emery did all the heavy staple-gunning). It took longer than I thought it would. But the results were well worth it.

Even though I had the Debbie Boone song stuck in my head for the two weeks that we were working on the lights. (You give me hope...to carry on!!! You light up my days, and fill my nights....WITH SONG!!! IT.CAN'T.BE-E.WRONG. When it feels, so right. But you.........you LIGHT UP MY-EYE-EYE-EYE-EYE....L-I-F-E).

It's not a Christmas song, but gosh darnit, it should be.

So, if you're in St. Augustine between now and January 31, check out the display. And spend some money while you're here--go out to eat, buy some Christmas ornaments. The sound of the cash register will help to drown out the sound of the town's electric meters spinning round and round like a pinwheel in a tornado.

Debbie Boone and electric bills aside--come on down and enjoy the lights.

5 Great Reasons to Gain Five Pounds in St. Augustine

One of the reasons that the hub and I wanted to move to St. Augustine is because we loved the idea of being able to walk to dinner, and to the bank, and the post office, and pretty much anywhere we'd want to go.

I'm a big fan of the walkable town. When you walk you get a chance to really see the details of a place (and the Ancient City has plenty of details to share). You connect with other people. And you can eat dessert every night without feeling guilty at all.

Even if you aren't burning off calories like an incinerator during the day, there are plenty of reasons to have dessert in St. Augustine. Here are five of them:

1.The key lime cheesecake at Creekside (photo at left).  Even our waitress admitted that she had it every time they put it on the menu. If I worked there, I would force them to make this dessert every single night.

2. Pastries at the Bunnery. My mother-in-law discovered this place., so I want to give her the credit. Last time she was here, she bought a whole box of little delicious fruit and chocolate thingies. Every time I tried one (and I tried several), I thought it was the best.pastry.ever.

3. Chocolate and caramel covered rice crispie bars at Kilwin's. I know it's a simple dessert...heck, my five year old nephew could make it (if I made sure that the entire kitchen--and Jack--were completely covered in plastic wrap first....because There Would be a Mess). But it was the very first dessert that the hub and I enjoyed in St. Augustine--years ago--and it still has a soft, sweet spot in our heart.

4. The bread pudding at The Raintree (left). Now, people can get pretty darn territorial when it comes to bread pudding. There are contests, and smack talk, and occasionally a duel (well, maybe that last part is a little exaggerated). But the best bread pudding is exaggerated...it should be the richest, densest, craziest dessert on the menu. And it should come with a bourbon sauce, which it does at the Raintree.

5. Heloisa's rum cake at the Bayfront Marin House. Now, you're going to think I'm biased...and I am. But not the way you think I am. I *hate* rum. I have ever since high school, when I poured out half a can of diet coke and refilled it with rum then threw it back like a cowboy in 1867. You can imagine how the evening ended. Anyway, suffice it to say I don't like rum. And yet, despite the bad memories, I ADORE Heloisa's rum cake. Our guests have literally taken a small bite in an absent-minded way, only to exclaim crazily "OH MY GOD THIS IS GOOD!!!" And then they take a huge bite. And then a second piece, to take upstairs for later. And then they ask for the recipe. Honestly. It's That Good.

And if you're good, netties, I'll print the recipe here later this month. Consider it my gift to you.

That, along with the gift of a couple of pounds on the ol' scale. Trust me; it's worth it.

A Big Wet Kiss for our Veterans

Happy Veteran's Day!

Here at the BMH, we celebrated the holiday with a free night for the first member of the military who called and reserved a room, and discounts for any other veterans who stayed with us this evening.

As much as we love the idea of a special geared to our veterans on Veteran's Day, we can't take credit for it: most of the bed and breakfasts in St. Augustine participated in the promotion.

In honor of those vets, and all of the others who have protected/are protecting us around the world, I thought it would be appropriate to focus on one of St. Augustine's most recognized landmarks: the Castillo de San Marcos. It's the fort that "welcomes" you as you come into town. It's been "welcoming" visitors to St. Augustine since 1672.

The fort was built by the Spanish, like most of St. Augustine. It's the spitting image of two forts I toured in Puerto Rico: the Castillo de San Cristobal and Castillo de San Felipe El Morro.

The Castillo de San Marcos was designed by Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza using the "bastion" system. That just means that it's got diamond-shaped projections (or bastions) at each corner of the fort, so that there were no blind spots for the guards. Speaking of guards, they all hung out in the garitas or sentry boxes at the corner of each bastion. Whenever they were under attack, they shot from those garitas. Because of the shape of the fort, they could shoot at a target from several different angles without shooting each other.

The fort is owned by the National Park Service, and is open for self-guided tours. Each visitor gets a walking tour pamplet and a map, both full of some surprising facts. Like the fact that the walls are up to 19 feet thick at the base of the fort, and they're made of blocks of coquina, a sedimentary rock comprised of shells, that's found in Florida. The coquina is actually soft when harvested, and has to harden for one to three years before you can build with it (there goes my plan for a coquina-built cement pond in the back yard). Once used in a building, the rock retains some of those soft qualities, so when it gets hit with a cannon ball, the cannon ball sinks into the rock like a big butt sinks into a Tempurpedic mattress.

To give you an idea of the size of the fort, you should know that it was built with over 400,000 blocks of that coquina stuff.

And as big as that number is, it's only about 1/3 the number of active military personnel we have in the United States. And it's half the number of people in the reserves. That's a lot of people. And a lot of  forts.

I don't have enough space here to thank all of our country's veterans. If I were to buy a red carnation for every man and woman who have served through the years and then placed that carnation in the Castillo de San Marcos, I'm sure that the fort would be overflowing with flowers (and I would be completely broke).

So I'll simply say "thank you" to the selfless veterans who have served through the years. All the way back to the men who protected St. Augustine in the Castillo de San Marcos 300 years ago.

Thank you. And happy Veteran's Day!