Random Taste for Thursday 1/25/18

Here we go again for the 3rd year ... a brand new set of tastes for 2018 ...

 here's the THIRD of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA 

(coming to you on sequential Thursdays.  All.  Year.  Long.)!

Establishment:  Giardino Gourmet Salads
Location:  (new to) Ft Lauderdale
Meal:  Dinner
Drink:  Coca-Cola in a can
Appetizer:  Boccata Sandwiches
one Curry Turkey and one Wild Alaskan Salmon Capperi
Main:  My Way Salad
romaine base with broccoli, cucumber, shredded parm (?), double dose of bacon with a scoop of roasted chicken topped with country garlic dressing and herb parmesan croutons
Side(s):  n/a
Dessert:  n/a
Server:   Victor and the guys
Website: http://www.giardinosalads.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/giardinonorthftl/

Eating healthier is always a good thing -- and sometimes one gets a hankering for a salad on a hot day here in the FTL.  Funny thing -- before the big move down here when we were just vacationing in town, we actually went looking for a grocery store salad bar one afternoon and couldn't find one (and we didn't know the area well enough to find the Sweet Tomatoes on the outskirts of town).  Since then, Whole Foods expanded to include a section -- but now with a brand new location of an existing (mostly FL) chain, the area just got an even better option.  And when I say "brand new", I mean the official grand opening is still a week or two away!  For an accounting of the Troy-score, see below:

AMBIANCE:   9/10 (clean ... bright ... gigantic food-porn style photos of everything on the menu ... a little bit of soft jazz playing on the sound system -- plus absolutely everything looked brand new -- and that's 'cause it literally was! [as referenced above] ... I have a hunch that a mathematician created the menu, because the amount of permutations of potential options is mind-blowing considering there are 10 bases with 42 toppings from which to choose and 16 possible addable scoops to be dressed 21 different ways with 7 flavors of croutons that could be put on top for extra crunch ... which leads me to my single point deduction 'cause all of those possible paths toward a gourmet salad made my brain hurt)

FOOD:           8/10 (you know how sometimes you just have to marvel at how those little Chinese take out boxes seem to be bottomless pits of never ending food? ... somehow these bowls of gourmet salads perform the same way ... the ones pictured are actually the piccolo size [a bit smaller than the basta] and halfway through the meal, it looked like the same amount was still there ... [by the way, the additional salad that is shown here is the country cobb] ... we did observe that different employees took different approaches to the portioning [one did level scoops of everything and one did overflowing scoops] so a point is lost for the inconsistency there and a second point comes off the total because the homemade croutons, while delicious, are simply too big to get on the fork WITH anything else)

SERVICE:      8/10 (it was a nice touch to offer a sample of the soup while the customer is deciding what to order and every subsequent interaction -- including carrying your tray out to your table for you -- came off as authentic and was executed with a smile ... the deductions come from having ordered shredded parm for my salad cheese of choice but being given cheddar instead and for the fact that clearly everyone is told to greet the customer as soon as they walk in the door ... the only problem with that is there were at least five folks working that night, and the greetings got a little jumbled and felt a little bit aggressive [hence the point deduction] ... maybe there can be just one designated greeter moving forward?)

BACON:         10/10 (here's how you get a perfect score on the bacon section ... you provide real pieces of bacon as a choice instead of processed bacon bits ... you let your customers pick bacon TWICE when listing the ingredients they want in the salad ... you let your customers even add a scoop of bacon as a SOUP topping [yes I said SOUP!] ... and you hire employees who are overheard saying "I loooove bacon" as they build the product ... and you do all of that under the auspices of a healthy eating place)

BONUS:         7/10 (+3 for those special bite size sandwiches on potato rolls -- which you should consider the next time you need any catering [something the place offers], +3 for some delicious salad dressing choices [creamy cheese dressing and guacamole dressing are both on the list of things to try next time] and, to that point, +1 for being a place to which we will return [but NOT on a Sunday, since that is the one day a week that they are closed])

TroyScore:  42 out of 50 -- aka 84, a B

Random Taste for Thursday 1/18/18

Here we go again for the 3rd year ... a brand new set of tastes for 2018 ...

 here's the SECOND of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA 

(coming to you on sequential Thursdays.  All.  Year.  Long.)!

Establishment:  Stone Crab & Seafood Festival
Location:  Ft Lauderdale
Meal:  Lunch
Drink:  Coca-Cola bottle (my own)
Appetizer:  Jumbo Lump Crab Cake with Corn Salsa and Remoulade Sauce
Main:  Tuna Platter
Side(s):  Yellow Rice (with a surprise piece of sausage hanging out in the pile)
Dessert:  Shaved Ice
Server:   Grille 401 Las Olas, SeaShore Seafood and Tikiz (app, main and dessert respectively)
Website:  https://www.goriverwalk.com/greater-fort-lauderdale-events/stone-crab-seafood-festival
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/events/594444477345974/?active_tab=discussion

Another weekend ... another festival (dare I say ... 2018 just may be the year of the festival when it comes to this blog series).  This time, the shindig was held downtown right on the riverfront in a park that holds many an event year round ... and it was packed.  Like too many people packed.  Like long long lines packed.  Like one errant human away from a riot packed.  Luckily, no riots broke out and the humans mostly behaved themselves ... but it was so poorly organized (or else so overwhelmingly attended) that I *almost* ditched it after showing up and seeing the scene in favor of the chalk festival a few blocks away -- except, full disclosure, I had attended that first and it only had three sad food trucks next to a homeless encampment that seemed to reprise the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression.  For a full tally as to how this festival fared in the Troy-score (and managed to set an all time new low rating), see below:

AMBIANCE:   9/10 (Esplanade Park, as a prominent feature on the Riverwalk, is a pleasant enough promenade most days for most things -- including other events we've attended there ... and despite the crowds, you still can't beat enjoying an outdoor festival in the middle of January right next to the beautiful water ... so long as you worked your way to the outer edges once you got your food, you could enjoy the scenery much better ... the one point deduction comes from the live music that was playing as it looked like they were two young girls who might have been made to perform against their will)

FOOD:           7/10 (although there's an underlying theme of disappointment in this post, I want to clearly state that THE highlight of the afternoon was, without a doubt or any hesitation on my part, that appetizer crab cake ... it was served fresh and hot with a nice crunch and that cold corn relish had a perfectly seasoned sauce that wasn't too kicky but still served to amplify each bite ... the points start to come off for the other parts of the meal -- a tuna steak, happily steaky and not flaky but that was barely warmed through and lacked any seasoning [-1], a lobster roll that looked delicious that I almost had from that same stand except they ran out serving the last one to someone just a few people in front of me in line [-1] and a self-serve shaved ice food truck with a sign that promised my very own gum ball at the bottom of my dessert that simply wasn't there [-1])

SERVICE:      3/10 (let's face it -- it was a tangled throng of people in lines, lines and more lines, with no guidance from any festival planners... so it seems only fair to deduct one point for each ten minute interval I spent patiently waiting to get a little closer to a vendor and its wares [for those of you who do not want to do the math, that was a full hour I spent waiting between two lines] plus a deduction for a bit of a bait and switch with the marketing saying there would be dishes for $5 implying a tasting opportunity that simply wasn't the case universally with all vendors)

BACON:         5/10 (I'm pretty sure I saw some bacon at the drunken oyster stand [a place which I begrudgingly had to pass on due to the aforementioned poor line management] ... but I saw it nowhere else ... with the fact that bacon and seafood aren't a typical pairing [although they *should* be], we'll award half the points in this category out of sensitivity to the cuisine)

BONUS:         9/10 (+3 for the sheer size of that main dish though, even if it did need some extra seasoning, +3 for the stone crabs [at just one stand] which looked delicious on other people's plates but were too expensive for my budget [$28 for two "knuckles"] and +3 for that crab cake appetizer dish which really did make my experience that day worth all the first world struggles of the afternoon)

TroyScore:  33 out of 50 -- aka 66, a D

Random Taste for Thursday 1/11/18

Here we go again for the 3rd year ... a brand new set of tastes for 2018 ...

 here's the FIRST of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA 

(coming to you on sequential Thursdays.  All.  Year.  Long.)!

Establishment:  Chinese Lantern Festival
Location:  Lauderhill
Meal:  Dinner
Drink:  Coca-Cola bottle
Appetizer:  Egg Roll
Main:  Combo Platter
(chicken on a stick served with noodles and shrimp rice)
Side(s):  n/a
Dessert:  Funnel Cake
Server:   Chan (from Chan's Chicken on a Stick!)
Website:  https://www.chineselanternfestival.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/events/1406907156054273/

In the land of SoFlo, where it's pretty much always summer, there's *almost* always an opportunity to go find a festival.  Tonight, as per the FB event description, our destination was "a new and spectacular family friendly event ... the Chinese Lantern Festival produced by Hanart Culture ... a totally immersive experience among Chinese culture, multi-hued 'The Wild' animal lantern displays, live entertainment, authentic Chinese food, hand-made gifts by Chinese craftspeople, and more."  As for how the first (but not the last) festival of the year fared in the Troy-score category, see below:

AMBIANCE:   9/10 (to be fair, the festival is mostly about the festival and not exactly a "foodie" event ... but you can't quite beat eating at a picnic table in a pavilion where an authentic ancient Chinese shadow puppet show is being performed nearby ... this, after ambling around the lake on a path filled with the brightest of lit-up cloth covered wire creatures [the last picture below doesn't quite capture the beauty but might give a sense of the scope of it] ... the point lost is because of the cost of the activity, just a little too expensive for what was experienced [thankfully, Groupon helped with that])

FOOD:           7/10 (as you can hopefully see from the main photo, this wasn't some kebob of chicken on that stick -- it was a great big piece of Chinese chicken fresh off the grill with a good charred taste to compliment the light sauce ... the noodles were super saucy [although it reminded me vaguely of a lighter Thai peanut sauce] and the vegetables mixed in were plump and juicy ... that being said, there is a point lost for the shrimp that were more texture than flavor when it came to the rice, another point lost for excessive noodle juice that mixed in with everything else on the plate and a final point lost for a funnel cake that should have stayed in the fryer for another minute or two)

SERVICE:      5/10 (since it was a festival, there wasn't exactly much interaction with employees at either stand ... and that's understandable ... but what wasn't understandable was the fact that half of the vendors were a no-show, as seen in the second to last photo in this set ... so since we only had half the choices from which to select a meal, we can only provide half the points in this category)

BACON:         5/10 (with a limited menu [as explained] plus the fact that bacon isn't necessarily a typical ingredient in Chinese cuisine, we'll award half the points solely out of cultural sensitivities [although, let me tell you, I could be a millionaire if I could figure out how to make some bacon flavored funnel cake batter ...])

BONUS:         9/10 (+3 for an egg roll that was not overstuffed with cabbage and therefore tasted great [and I normally don't eat them], +3 for the all the beautiful displays and the artistic performances that were at the core of the festival in the first place and +3 for offering funnel cakes in January)

TroyScore:  35 out of 50 -- aka 70, a C

Random Taste for Thursday 1/4/18

And ... here we go ... I am tickled pink to announce that this concept will continue for what is now the third year.

Although, let's be honest right up front -- due to somewhat unpredictable circumstances, the 2017 reviews are currently a few months behind.  In order to not always be in a perpetual state of "catching up", the next few weeks will consist of both moving forward with the 2018 edition of presenting new reviews AND providing details about meals eaten but not yet documented on the blogs.

So ... as originally presented a few years ago, here are the rules ... "one NEW place (at which I've never before eaten) each week, with a year end best-of wrap up in Dec 2018".

Here's to, yet again, another 50 establishments for the year ahead!  Here's to 2018!