Ancient Olive, A St. Augustine Experience

Last night, I had a foodie "experience".

I'm not talking about a dining experience, either. I'm talking about an experience full of flavors, and scents, and great discussions about amazing food. It's just that there wasn't a lot of food there.

Besides some dipping bread, of course.

The Ancient Olive on King Street specializes in olive oils and balsamic vinegars. They have a ton of each--literally filling the store with stainless steel containers holding the mysterious liquids. There is cubed bread for the tasting, but they also provide small plastic cups so that you can dip your tongue in the goodness as well.

What do they have? Let's start with the olive oils. There are olive oils from around the world, and the very helpful staff (ask for James, who actually ran down the street to get me some ice cream so that I could taste a blood orange olive oil on top of Claude's vanilla bean ice cream) will walk you through where each is from (the processing standards vary dramatically from region to region, and James is happy to explain the intricacies to you in a way that's entertaining and enlightening all at once).

There are infused olive oils, with the light taste of basil, lemon, herbs, butter, or any number of other interesting flavors.

Then there are the vinegars--a delicious array of deep balsamic vinegars with hints of espresso (I bought a bottle), strawberry, blueberrry, lavender, apple, vanilla, and many many more. (You can see all of their offerings at www.theancientolive.com).

You can taste as many as you like, and the staff will make suggestions for usage at home. For instance, on First Friday Artwalks, the Ancient Olive staff makes a delicious salad with pears, strawberries, and a strawberry infused balsamic vinegar and a basil olive oil. Delish!

You can buy their products in 375 ml bottles, or in small tasting-sized bottles (hint, hint--stocking stuffers, anyone??) They also sell homemade pastas, as well as a small selection of beautiful serving pieces (I am lusting after a tray I saw there...and I may have to go back this weekend to pick it up!)

I could go on and on all day about the wonderful staff (James got married in St. Augustine 2 years ago, and a lot of his guests stayed at the inn, so of course we were fast friends!), the amazing flavors, and the expert suggestions, but really--you have to "experience" it yourself.

Local Secrets: Where to Eat

If I had a dollar for every time someone says to me, "Wow--Saint Augustine has the most amazing restaurants. It must be great to live here and eat at them all the time!!"

If I *did* have a dollar for every time someone said that to me, I might have enough money to eat at Saint Augustine restaurants all the time.

Which is why I was so excited when Mojo's finally opened (their contractors may have moved even slower than our own--and that's sayin' something). Mojo's is a barbecue place...the kind of casual, laid back joint that offers pulled pork sandwiches and a row of 5 different sauces to enjoy with it (Chipotle, Sweet, Vinegar, Mustard, and Mojo BBQ). I like to douse the pork in vinegar, then dot with a little of the sweet sauce.

They have awesome sides, too--like pit baked beans (smoky and just a little sweet), collard greens (so good with chunks of bacon), the best french fries in town (I put a little vinegar on them too), mac n' cheese (haven't tried it yet, but people moan when they taste it), black eyed peas, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, and a bunch of other ones that I also haven't tried. They've only been open about a month; give a girl a little time.

But you know what's really awesome about it? It's huge, for one, which means that you can actually go there on a Saturday night (we locals NEVER go out to eat on a Saturday night--it only makes us cranky to wait in lines), and you can get a sandwich and side for just nine bucks.

That's right--nine bucks. In addition to the pork, the hub loves the blackened catfish, even though you can't load it up with sauces. I plan to try the maple salmon entree next time I go--sure, it's a whopping $15, but sometimes even us locals have to live it up.

95 Cordova Gets 100 From Me

Although I work from home, and the hub works at the Inn (a mere 10-minute walk away...and that's if you have to wait for the light at King Street), we really don't have that much "couple" time.

Oh, we decorate for weddings together, and we pay the bills together, and late at night we sit next to each other, working on our respective laptops. But I'm not sure that any of that qualifies as couple time.

So today we decided to meet for a nice lunch. Mike chose 95 Cordova, the beautiful Moorish restaurant in the Casa Monica hotel. He ate there a few weeks ago for a lunch meeting, and he's been wanting me to go ever since.

The restaurant is exotic--with tall dramatic chairs and elaborate arches everywhere. The ceiling was burnished gold, and it seemed like every surface was decorated with a little sumpin sumpin. But too much is never enough for me, so I liked it just fine.

Since I was in a bit of a hurry (I had a phone call with the office at 1:30), Mike didn't get the coconut curry soup, and he probably is still a little miffed over that. So I can't report on whether that was good or not.

The waiter brought us some good chewy bread as a starter, with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and house made pesto sauce. My grandmother is coming to visit us in October, and the bread alone made us both say--almost at once--that we'll have to bring her to this restaurant (she loves bread!) It was excellent, and probably would have gone great with a bowl of curry soup.

As it turned out, I didn't need the bread, as my curry chicken salad ($12) came with little wedges of pita. The salad was delicious, although the write up had said it came with apples, dates and cilantro, and I don't think I had any of those things on my plate (many people would say that these are all just cheap filler, and they would be happy that every chunk in the salad was pure white chicken instead). I did enjoy the candied nuts on top of the salad...they added a nice sweetness to the spice.

Note: if you order this because you want a lot of greens with your salad, don't. This is pure chicken salad, like the kind you put on a sandwich, and there were just a few tiny greens underneath it for looks. Again, this was fine with me...it's the chicken that's the good part anyway!

The hub enjoyed meatloaf, made with beef and homemade sausage ($15). It was topped with mushrooms in a rich sauce, and bottomed with a HUGE pile of mashed potatoes and then an artful spray of green beans. The waiter said it was his favorite dish on the menu (the hub and I always compete to see who gets the heartiest "Oh, good choice, sir/madam" from the wait staff.) Why a heavy meal like meatloaf is a very good choice on a sweltering day, I'm not sure...it's possible that the waiter knew that Mike was paying the bill.

The service was very nice, and it was a great (and quick) getaway from the daily grind of the home office. The menu had lots of yummy looking desserts too, I'll have to check them out on the next trip!

Crepe Exectations

A hearty "dobro pozhalovatʹ" (that's "Welcome" in Russian) to Margarita Abramov, the owner of the newly opened Sara's Crepes Cafe (at 100 St. George Street, http://www.sarascrepecafe.com/).

The hub and I visited right after the restaurant opened last week; we had seen advance notice of the opening and wanted to check it out.

The restaurant itself is adorable, with cheery yellow walls, a collection of blue and white pottery in the corner, and great Paris flea market lamps hanging from the tin ceiling. When we went last week, there was a Russian dance performance playing on a large flat screen television.

And Margarita herself--who is beautiful with black hair and the most striking eyes--is a wonderful presence at the cafe, visiting with each table, refilling water and soda glasses and generally just making sure that everything is perfect.

I started with a very good split pea soup, garnished with smoky ham pieces, and the hub had a nice-sized caesar salad. I mention "nice-sized" because when you see the prices, you will wonder if the servings are child-sized. (The crepe I got, for instance, was $4.95). My crepe--the Napoleon--was filled with more of the smoked ham and topped with a house-made hollandaise sauce (not too much, which suited me perfectly). The hub had the Count Amaury ($6.95) which had beef tips, mushrooms, and a black truffle and thyme demi glace. We both liked them.

We didn't have time for dessert, but the hub visited again yesterday and sampled some fantastic banana chocolate crepes. So make sure you save room when you visit! (The cafe is hosting an opening party tonight from 5:00 - 6:30).

Sara's (the restaurant is named for Margarita's grandmother) is open for breakfast lunch and dinner and they have indoor and outdoor seating (we sat indoors and enjoyed the a/c). Order from the menu, or make your own crepe for a truly unique experience.

Who, Us? Remarkable??

Last week, the Jacksonville Union-Times published their list of the Most Remarkable Rooms in northeast Florida.

There were some beautiful rooms in their list: the Garden Suite at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island (which goes for a mere $750/night), the Presidential Suite at Ponte Vedra Inn, the Presidential Suite at Jekyll Island Club.

And then there was...our Coquina Suite!!!!! Yes, Room 11 at the Bayfront Marin House, a favorite among honeymooners, and a gorgeous three-room suite (bedroom, jacuzzi and sitting area, and bathroom) with fantastic coquina walls (that's the shell-encrusted building material that's indigenous to Florida's first coast).

If you want to see the whole story, here it is:

http://jacksonville.com/slideshows/entertainment/remarkable-rooms

George Washington Would Eat at the Bistro de Leon

President's Day weekend is almost here, and we just got an awesome deal to pass on to our guests.

Bistro de Leon, one of the best restaurants in town, is offering our guests a free kir chardonnais from February 17 through the 20th. If you're interested, just stop in the office and we'll print a coupon for you. The coupon is only good this upcoming weekend, so celebrate the holiday the George Washington way--with a wonderful Frenchman (if you care more about food than history, I'm referring to Washington's bud the Marquis de Lafayette).

Jean Stephan and Valerie Poinard (two of our favorite French) have brought a little bit of their country to 12 Cathedral Street in Saint Augustine (about 3 blocks from our inn, so if you have really really cute shoes you want to wear to dinner, you can probably do it without too much pain). Jean Stephan is a fifth-generation chef, and his dna shows up in every meal, from the complementary amuse buche (last time I went, it was an amazing little spoon of soup) to the French pastries that greet you from behind glass as you walk into the door.

Don't plan on running into the Bistro for a quick bite. In fact, the menu itself extolls the virtues of slow food (it warns in a pleasantly broken English "as everything is home made "a la Minute" be aware that Chef Jean and sous chef Florian need some time at least 25 to 30 minutes to prepare and cook your entree, so order an appetizer waiting for it"). I have to agree--get an appetizer. I recommend their goat cheese salad...the smooth cheese is baked in honey and datil pepper sauce, and its combination of cool and hot and smooth and fiery is an awesome way to start the night.

For an entree, I love the Chicken Tajine, a breast of chicken slow cooked in candied lemons and Moroccan spices. It's complex and warm...a perfectly cozy little dish.

I usually don't have the gumption to get dessert, but as I said, the pastries will beckon you from the case (that's them, pictured above). I've been known to ask for one in a to-go box.

No matter what you ultimately eat, make sure you come downstairs and get your coupon for a free drink. And then get out there and celebrate...George Washington would want you to.

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.

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.

Don't Even Ask Me about the Secret Handshake

Since I've paid my first mortgage, I guess I'm officially a small business owner.

I know I've said this before, but I never really thought of a bed and breakfast as a small business. I didn't think of it as a business at all, just like I don't think of people who sell vitamins or jewelry as small business owners. (Sorry to all of my friends who do that. It's not that I belittle the work; in fact, I tend to think of you all as industrious people with a part-time job. I just don't think of it as a small business).

But I've been told I'm wrong about that. We are all Small Businesses (in capital letters), and we comprise a vital part of the country's economy.

You can imagine how excited I was when the media declared two weeks ago that Congress and the president wanted to help small businesses. I stayed up all night at the bed and breakfast with a toilet brush and a bottle of Greenworks. After all, if Congress really wanted to help me, Nancy Pelosi could swing by and clean one of the rooms. And Barbara Mikulski looks as if she could really scrub out the inside of a Jacuzzi; she's small enough to get in there underneath the faucets.

Needless to say, Nancy and Babs never came.

Then I scoured the mail, assuming that help would come in the way of a nice check to help me "jumpstart the economy."

Again, nothing.

I was starting to think that being a small business owner pretty much sucked.

Until, that is, I learned about "the cult".

The cult of small business owners, that is. The secret society of people who have to pay their taxes every single month. The sleepless cell of business owners who answer their emails at midnight, shop only when things are on sale, and do their "books" in a corner of the tv room.

Now, being pretty slow, I didn't "get" what was going on at first. I just thought people were being nice. Like the green trolley people, who sent over a nice plant welcoming us to town, along with an invitation to happy hour. And the ghost tour people, who invited us to a VIP tour, along with a cute bag full of homemade soaps.

"Southerners sure are nice," I thought, as I pocketed the soap and put the plant in the Marin's dining room.

But then, I went to Meehan's on Matanzas, and something started to click with me. When the bill came, it didn't include our drinks (being the big drinkers that we are, it was just a single iced tea, but still). So I pointed it out to our pleasant waitress, who said, "Oh, that isn't a mistake" and she gestured towards John Meehan, the handsome owner of said restaurant. He smiled like Robert Redford, then gave me the ol' finger slide down the side of the nose. I was suspicious that something was going on, but then I just assumed that he had nasal problems.

A few weeks later, I got a nice note from Stacie at the Green Trolley, who said that she'd be happy to drop off a Yellow Pass. It was free entry to almost every.single.venue in St. Augustine.

"That way," she said, "you can talk first-hand about the different activities with all of your guests." Activities like riding the Green Trolley through town (which I do highly recommend, incidentally, but more on that later).

So here's the deal: it seems that being a small business owner is hard. Really hard. And we're all pretty interdependent on each other (is that even a word?) So...I send someone to Raintree Restaurant, and recommend the seafood chowder; they send someone to the Bayfront Marin, and recommend having breakfast in bed. I suggest taking the Schooner for a sunset cruise; they recommend the sangria at our happy hour.

It's all very mason-like, isn't it? Without the confusing symbols, of course (although there are all of those quatrafoils around the town).

Of course, I'll probably be thrown out of the club, or shunned socially, for mentioning this society to you. But I feel like I have an obligation to take you on this ride with me, and that means sharing everything.

So, to all of you non-small business owners...I feel sorry for you. As you sit back and enjoy your company-paid holidays and flu shots, I have a perk that you don't have. I have peeps...comrades in arms...buds. I am a member of the *club*, baby. And I have a yellow pass, which is just as good as having keys to the city. (Better, actually, as my keyring is already overloaded with all the keys to the b and b).

I'm going to do as many of those free things as I can. (And maybe even a couple that I have to pay for--in the interest of being thorough). I'm going to visit as many restaurants as possible, too, and report back to you on what to do and don't do in this beautiful old city of mine. I'll try new drinks, dinner specials, and more historic tours than most people could stand.

It's going to be hard, netties. But I'm willing to do it. Just for you. And the free drinks, of course.