Ten Good Things in Tallahassee

I first came to Tally in November 2005, and returned to Austin last week from my last planned trip there. Over those 5 years I managed to eat out. A lot. Mostly I ate the sort of middling sustenance that gets one through the day when traveling. A few times, I got to partake in the memorable.

Sitting here, back in Austin on a sunny day off, I was just thinking through the places I'd go back to should I get back to Tally at some point down the road. And here it is, in no particular order.

1. Best Place to Stay: The Aloft

Technically, the Aloft is not food. But it is the sweetest deal going in Tally accommodations. Aloft is a Starwood hotel, and it makes a big deal out of being the pipsqueak version of the W. Hipster without being too precious, the Aloft pretty much nails the cheap hotel formula. Comfy bed, modern interior design, perfect mid-century design desk chair, good espresso in the lobby.

And the clock. The bed-side clock rocks.

2. Best Bar: Level8 at Hotel Duval

I am not cool enough for this bar, but I love it anyway. Level8 opened up sometime in 2009 with the slick boutique Hotel Duval. While an 8th floor panoramic balcony in another town might face you at a brick wall, in Tallahassee it presents a view over the rooftops and trees, out toward the setting sun. Drinks and bar food are about what you'd expect - nothing earth shattering - but the people are all trendy and beautiful, the breeze is refreshing even on sweltering summer afternoons, and the whole deal is a step away from Florida small town and into something cool in a whole different class.

Photo - SheltonDean Designs

3. Best Dinner: Cypress -

One of the first posts I wrote in Tallahassee was in reference to a lovely evening at Cypress. Nothing's changed since then. Cypress is easily the best restaurant in town, hitting the right notes on service, on wine, and on food. It's fancy, but it's a foodie fancy - nothing for show, all for taste. When folks came into town for a quick visit, for team celebrations, for goodbyes or welcomes, if I had anything to do with it, this is where we ended up.

4. Best Lunch: Kool Beanz -

The basic rule that nice restaurants do not name themselves with whacked spelling does not apply to Tallahassee. Nowhere is that on more blatant display than Kool Beanz. A cozy place with a pretty patio and an ambitious menu, Kool Beanz is as good a lunch as I've had in town. It's not fast-food cheap, but for what it is - creative American cuisine made from fresh, sometimes local ingredients - it's exceptionally well priced. I've been for dinner as well, but I think the fancy/casual atmosphere does better at lunch. Menu changes often. Never a dull visit.

5. Best Cheap Eats: Gordo's -

In the grand scheme of basic cleanliness, Gordo's is about as low on the scale as I'm willing to visit. That said, this is college-dive Cuban done right. The arroz con pollo is better than any I've had at even far more upscale spots; the maduros, totally on point. Weakest points at Gordo's are the sandwiches, which I found kind of bland.

6. Best Pizza: Momo's -

Slices as big as your head. Like Galapagos wildlife left to evolve in an isolated environment, Pizza in Tallahassee has grown to proportions I have never seen in the outside world. An XL Momo's Pizza is 30 inches across - 700 square inches. And it's not just enormous, it's really fabulous pizza - thin crust, beautifully spiced kind of punchy sauce, huge array of fresh toppings. Momo's and Decent Pizza are nearly identical in these respects, and both are contenders here, but I'm giving the nod to Momo's because they came first. I prefer the north location for the huge patio and the lack of insanely loud (but pretty good) music that they incessantly play down at the campus location.

7. Best Sweets: Lucy and Leo's Cupcakery -

Cupcakes hit Tallahassee a few years later than they hit Austin, and Lucy and Leo's pretty much sums up the trend - tasty, a little fru-fru and obsessively cute. L&L's, named after the owners' dog and the dog that lives next door, takes up the front half of a little shop. The back half is a quaint little shop full of art, handmade clothes, and little DIY knick knacks. They compliment each other nicely. As for the cupcakes, L&L rocks the best buttercream in town, and hits some pretty killer inventions. The lemon cupcakes in particular, topped with a little blueberry, are to die for.

Photo - Lucy and Leo's

8. Best Groceries: New Leaf

New Leaf was the best grocery store in town before they expanded. Now, with a bunch more wine, a ton of local produce, a pretty stellar selection of meat and cheese, and a more navigable space, they're way, way out in front. Still, New Leaf is no Whole Foods, and shopping there requires some flexibility, almost like a farmer's market - they've either got the best damn grapefruit in town, or they don't have grapefruit at all. Always an adventure.

9. Best Park: Southwood

This one has really, literally, nothing to do with food. It's just a really good park. A postcard-perfect park, with a trail winding a mile or so around a lake, under monumental old oaks draped with Spanish moss, and across beautiful little wooden footbridges. When my family was down in the summer, we went here nearly daily (that's my daughter reading her book under one of the giant oaks). The pool is off limits to non-residents, but the rest of the park, including a modest but lovely playscape, is open to everyone and just about perfect.

10. Best Random Find: The Soup Swift -

The Soup Swift may very well be the best soup-and-salad place physically connected to a retirement home in the South. Soups are creative, constantly changing and often a little daring, salads are well executed, and the place is just about as cute as you can make a linoleum-tiled, windowless cinder block establishment. A coworker refers to it as BYOD - Bring Your Own Doily - which is about right. The trick with the Swift is to get a seat at one of the half dozen picnic tables outside. Perched there, under the umbrellas, dipping into an expert gazpacho or lemon grass curry and munching a crisp salad is an unexpected pleasure.

Sakura - A Little Bit of Artistry in Strip Mall Sushi

There's a sweet little sushi place over by Lake Ella. It's nothing fancy, and nothing life changing, but in its own quiet old-school way it's the best sushi in town.

Sakura is nestled in the ground floor of a slightly run-down strip mall off Monroe. It's a dark space and not particularly appealing from the street, but they've done a reasonable job inside making it homey and warm. This applies much more to the dining room than the bar. The bar is kind of depressing.

The several times I've been to Sakura, the food has been consistent and tasty. The fish is always fresh - super fresh, actually - which means there is none of that lingering fishy smell that pervades strip mall sushi everywhere. Where Sakura varies is in presentation. I've eaten there and had absolute works of art. I've also eaten there and had artless little slabs of fish. It goes either way. Tasty in both cases, way more fun in the former.


They do a pretty solid job on the non-fish, too. Colleagues swear by the noodles, and I'm a big fan of the beautifully spiced and sinfully greasy pot stickers, which have been just about perfect every time I've been there.

Sakura compares favorably to the more upscale Masa, right up the street, in terms of food if not in atmosphere, and is just about as expensive. Less of a see-and-be-seen place, it's nevertheless a lovely little spot, and a definite regular on the Tally circuit.

Bella Bella. First > Second.

In 1995, when I lived in DC, I used to eat at a place near Dupont Circle called City Lights. This isn't a review of City Lights, but it does go one step closer to proving a hypothesis I came up with there: At all but the most super-fantastic places, appetizers are better than entrees.

This is a review of Bella Bella, in Tallahassee, and nowhere have I seen the appetizer vs. entree distinction so starkly displayed.

Bella Bella is 100% Tally cute, from the homemade sign and painted windows to the mismatch mix of tables and chairs. It's a neighborhood joint, and carries all the cheery warmth that comes with that. The food is Italianish, mostly sandwiches and salads at lunch and mostly pasta at dinner. There's a chalk board with specials, but you get the sense that these are on a pretty fixed rotating schedule, not the inspiration of chefs after a morning shop at the farmer's market.

I've been to Bella Bella a handful of times, and have had exactly the same experience each time: eat more than I should of lovely steaming italian bread and whipped butter; order an exquisite if also too-heavy appetizer, and then -flop- get a giant dish of blah. This is followed by a selective memory operation in which I forget the blah, remember the exquisite, and, in another 6 months, I'm at it again.

For this trip, the exquisite was the Bubble Bread, a huge plate of Italian bread, lathered with butter and roasted garlic, covered with Gorgonzola and Mozzarella, baked until the cheese is gooey and bubbling and served with a small bowl of marinara. Probably 3 days worth of calories on that plate alone, but it was totally worth it.

The blah was the special, Penne Puttanesca, which was run of the mill penne rigate , slightly overcooked, in a bland, slightly creamy tomato and beef sauce.

This was confusing, since the really great thing about a good puttanesca is the salty complexity of olives, tomatoes and peppers together. I've eaten it with capers, artichoke hearts, even a little sausage, but universally the things that make up a puttanesca are salty and tart. It's sort of an antipasto in a bowl, where a good, hearty pasta can cut through the acidity and deliver a really pleasing balance.

Trying to critique the Bella Bella puttanesca is like critiquing the audio quality of a toothpick. It was an entirely different thing than its name suggested, lacking in complexity, lacking in character.

All that said, I'm likely to end up back there some day. The place has a certain pull, and there are definitely days when a neighborhood joint with good warm bread and a friendly bustle sound perfect. But next time: only appetizers.

Judging Chili

Every year, starting sometime in early fall, Chili trash talking starts at the Florida Department of Revenue. It gets to the point where you have to account for a good 10 minutes of chili-baiting before a meeting starts, where to inquire about prior year results is as likely as not to lead to a tirade against crooked judges and unjust outcomes.

I've been doing Grubbus a while, reviewing food from a step back and with a little anonymity. This year, I was asked to be a judge in the contest, to judge on the spot, in full view. The experience was awesome.

All four judges were ushered into a conference room and presented with trays with all 13 entrants placed in a unique order for each judge. We were given water, palate-cleansing saltines, and a score sheet. For each chili, we were asked to rate aroma, texture, and taste on a scale of 1 to 5. The final score was aroma + texture + (3 x taste).




The entrants were all good solid Florida Chili, which is to say not Texas chili, and while I was prepared to award an extra few points to any beanless entry, none presented itself. We had African-fusion, Indian-fusion, and a green-chili entrant that seemed loosely based on New Mexico Green Chili stew. Nothing too spicy (again, a lost opportunity for extra points in my book), but plenty of spice; and though all but two followed the same meat/tomato/bean/onion formula, plenty of variety. Some were harder to eat than others, but in the moment, as much joking and playing and costumes were in place leading up to the contest, it was very serious, and very quiet.

In the end, there was a pretty clear top 3. But the one that mattered was third place. After years of pouring heart and soul into chili, after years of showing up in costume, after years of coming just this close to some chili-recognition, Susan took home a medal with her mild and subtlety spiced Nun Better Chili.

Closed: Fusion Cafe and a Decent Avocado

I've been getting a lot of really bad avocados recently.

A good avocado is a thing of beauty, geode-like in the contrast between inside and outside; between butter and lizard-skin. The texture of a good avocado, matte and silky, just invites you to slice, to split it into smooth-sided little slivers or cubes or crescents.

And then there is the bad avocado: brown streaks, goopy bits, rough chunky edges and stringy filaments threaded through.

Twice in the last two weeks, I've been served inedible avocado. Once at the Doral Marriott in Miami, and once at the Bonefish Grill up here in Tally. And my question: What gives? I mean, it'd be one thing if they served the thing whole, skin side out, fruit still a mystery, but this is prepped food with the evidence splayed out for the world to see. It got me thinking that maybe the delineation between a kitchen that cares and one that does not is the avocado. If the prep guy, seeing the oozy, icky brown bits, sends it on; if the chef drops it on a salad, or atop a chicken sandwich; if the room service guy picks it up and brings it to your room; and if none of them do anything to stop the horror, something is amiss. Bad avocado = bad kitchen.

I also had one good avocado, at Fusion Cafe in Tallahasee. Trendy and quiet, with a mostly-black, concrete-floor and square-plates metro aesthetic, Fusion does a good job balancing an upscale feel with a cheap, funky menu. They do a nice gumbo - thick and rich, if a little under spiced. Salads are excellent, with good field greens and house-made dressings. They have good crab cakes, they do a flashy spinach lasagna, they have hamburgers. The Cobb Salad I got this week, containing the aforementioned avacado, was excellent - each element distinct and crisp, avocado lush, bacon crispy, balsamic subtle and sweet. The impressive thing about this place, though no individual item rises to the level of epiphany, is that they do everything well. This is a competent restaurant with a creative bent and decent service. I wish they'd managed a little more oomph into the dishes - a little more spice, a little more creativity, a little more precision, but those wishes don't change the fact that this is a place that looks, feels and tastes well above the norm.

Stumbling on the Essence of India

It's a bold name for a restaurant, sort of like Seattle's Best Coffee or The Country's Best Yogurt. These things invite you to scoff, to call the bluff. I knew Seattle's best coffee, and you, sir, are no Seattle's best coffee.

And it's got a couple strikes against it right off the bat. For one, The Essence of India is in Tallahassee. The pizza's good in this town, but it's not typically strong on ethnic cuisine. For another thing, it's tucked in the corner of a strip mall next to a discount hair products store and an indoor archery range, behind the Olive Garden. That's bad karma no matter how you slice it.

Despite the rough prospects, this is an outstanding restaurant. I've got no real basis for determining if this is authentic or not, but the food is delicious. I typically order "medium" spicy and it's fiery and nuanced, with all the layers of complexity and spice interaction I associate with good Indian food. In everything I've had the sauces are thin, subtle and deeply spiced rather than the brightly colored-goop I've come to expect at more typical Indian places. The Korma is outstanding, with bits of almonds, and a milky, rich faintly sweet flavor. I'm also partial to the Madras sauce, which is dark and a little smoky. Tandoori items, especially the chicken Tikka are tender and moist. With Tracy and the kids this week, we ordered a feast, and there was general consensus that the Samosas and Aloo Tikki (kid favorites) were excellent. The plan Nan is good and fresh, but the garlic is more fun.

Often I write these posts after a single experience; in this case this is place I've been to maybe a dozen times. I'll probably tire of it sooner or later - it's on Appalachee Parkway right across from the Courtyard I stay at – but for months now it’s been one of my favorites. I’ve yet to be disappointed with anything I’ve ordered, and look forward to continuing to reach down the menu to try things I haven’t tried anywhere.

Cypress or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Waiting Tables

I had a succession of food jobs through high school and college. I washed dishes, waited tables, manned the grill, made sandwiches, worked cash registers, tended bar. It was great, deeply satisfying work. Compared to consulting, the problems solved while waiting tables are both more pressing in the moment and easier to let go of at closing time. There's immediate gratification, constant feedback, and a continual sense of providing (literally) substantial value to the people who have put their trust in you. Give me that on a project, and I'll be there in a heartbeat.

So tonight, we all went out to Cypress, just west of Monroe on Tennessee St in Tally. Cypress is a small, upscale, place in the same class as Mozaik in price, ambition and focus, and I think even better than Mozaik in execution and spelling. The ambiance of the place embodies the practicality of Tallahassee elegance: the walls are painted an artful array of rich, earthy colors; these walls are also made of cinder blocks.

The unifying idea here is Nouveau American meets Southern comfort food. I've seen a lot of places try this, but I think Cypress has an innovative angle - quirky uses of familiar, iconic ingredients - that was well thought out and nicely executed. Case in point: I had an excellent salad with local field greens and featuring (trust me, this works) peanut brittle. The main dishes were similarly designed, if a little less daring: my salmon arrived aside fingerling potatoes and a delicate sauce that evoked mango lassi. It was unassuming and delicious.

We were a large group - maybe 20 - and we were a little demanding. When we sat down, we placed orders for wine, hoped for bread, and selected some appetizers. Slowly, these things came to us. They were very, very good, but they were slow. And we were pretty hard on the waitress regarding the pacing of delivery. Her even, sincere, unfazed graciousness in excepting criticism was what got me thinking about how much I miss this business. There was something about the calm confidence in her response that neatly summarized how much this place does exactly right.

Closed: CoolGrindz: 3Ms is better than none.

I've noticed a disturbing trend here. Good, local places that seem to care about the food they serve are apparently named by suburban middle schooler poser skate punks: Moziak, CoolGrindz, Cool Beanz. I honestly have no idea how this happened. It's like the little scoops of potato salad everybody glomps on the top of an otherwise decent greek salad here. The vast mysteries of Tallahassee.

CoolGrindz is a respectable little coffee shop. It's bright and pleasant, with a nice patio, good cuban music, and a homegrown feel, right off Tharpe at Lake Ella Plaza. They've got a live music schedule, free wifi, comfy chairs and very non-starbucks bright orange walls. And they make a decent espresso. Well, three-quarters of a decent espresso.

There's an old italian formulation for a good espresso: the four M's.

• Macinazione is the correct grinding of the coffee
• Macchina is the espresso machine
• Mano is the skilled hand of the barista
• Miscela is the coffee blend.

CoolGrindz has an admirable 3-group Nero Italia Espressa, beans ground fresh for for the shot in Espressa K-1 grinders, and the barista did a reasonable tamp before pulling a 25 second 2-ounce shot. A little rough around the edges, but altogether way better than par. The Miscela is where this whole deal falls apart. These beans were past roasted. These were baked. The flavors were overpowered by an earthy, deep, charcoal. Not since I last visited Peet's have I had a shot with beans this dark. Not that it was all bad - there was a nice, lasting crema, the espresso was silky and substantial, and there was next to no bitterness.

In all, it was a pleasant surprise, and a far cry better than the Starbucks that has so far been my one Tallahassee espresso option. With a lighter roast, these guys could have something really memorable.

Hopkins Eatery - Further proof that we're clueless about Tally

Hopkins Eatery is sort of a responsible big brother to the occasionally brilliant flake that is The Main Ingredient. At the Main Ingredient, there's something like 14 million combinations you can order. At Hopkins, they've already figured all that out for you. You get the sense of a place rooted, with people who know exactly what the hell they're doing, and who love doing it. I had lunch at the Hopkins at Lake Ella Plaza, across Tharpe from One Fresh. The place is charming and homey, clean but not particularly updated. I'm guessing a mid-80s vintage.

It's an order-at-the-register deal, but not fast food. There's some marketing jargon for that, but I'm pretty sure that this place has been doing it before it was cool. The menu is dominated by maybe 3 dozen different sandwiches, the majority of which are quirky and fun. I think you could do custom orders as well, but a plain Turkey-On-Rye would be missing the fun of this place. I had a Hummer - smoked turkey, half a dozen different veggies, hummus, feta, some sort of light vinaigrette. It was awesome - everything in near-perfect proportion. I was particularly impressed by the bread (slices of marble rye/pumpernickel). In a time when just about everything is on baguettes or ciabatta, this was Old School sandwich bread, just thick enough to contain everything without strain, but not so thick as to dominate the tastes. And you've got to hand it to a place that is either oblivious enough or stubborn enough to name a sandwich The Hummer because, dammit, the thing's got Hummus. There's also salads, which looked great (excepting the potato salad on greek salad, which is insane, and is everywhere in Tally), and what looked like really top-notch brownies and cakes. Cheap, efficient, tasty, and not exclusively a college hang out.

Very lucky find, I will definitely be back.

Closed: Carlos' Cuban Cafe - The Food almost makes up for it

You know you're in ATL late when the place gets quiet. There's still people here, but they pass in clusters of 2 or 3, not the steady stream of people that were tromping past a few hours ago.

Most of this week, tonight included, has been unremarkable from a food point of view - the standards: MoMo's, Gordo's, Bonefish - and Atlanta Bread Company in the airport. On Monday, though, I branched out a bit, to mixed results. Carlos' barely counts as branching out, to be honest - I'd had lunch there once before a few months back, and it was just good enough to merit a return.

Carlos' starts off with good points in my book just based on the name. There was an amazing little hole in the wall in Santa Fe called Carlos' Gospel Cafe. Gone now, but they had a green chile stew that would peel paint off the walls and cure a hangover. The Carlos' in Tallahassee has the name in common with the Santa Fe establishment, but not much else. I stopped by around 8:30 - didn't seem late to me, but there was only one other table, and by 8:40, they were out the door. It was just me, a couple of wait staff, a cashier, a hostess, at least a couple of cooks, and I'm guessing a dishwasher. Lesson one: unless Carlos' does a raging lunch business, this place may have another thing in common with the Santa Fe Carlos' before too long. What may be a tendency toward overspending on staff did not extend to the physical space. This is a bare bones restaurant - not kitchy like Gordo's, but just a little run down.

I ordered Pollo de la Hija. The food, preceded by a small basket of garlic bread was definitely the highlight of the experience. Not inspired, exactly, but well thought out and well balanced. The chicken was tender and flavorful, served in a broth that was largely wine, but flavored with a little citrus (lime?) and a whole handful of interesting savory flavors I couldn't quite peg. The sauce was particularly good with the rice, which in turn was a great contrast to the sweetness of the maduros. Well thought out, and well executed.

And here's the funny thing - if this had run me $6, I'd have been raving about this little undiscovered gem. As it was, the chicken was one of the cheaper items on the menu at $18. Given the price of things, it seemed like the place was a little too up on itself; pretending to be fancy, when the reality had more to do with the plastic covered tables and uneven floor. Worth another trip? On the basis of the food, maybe. But not particularly soon.

Momo's - You can't possibly imagine the size of this calzone

Momo's makes big pizza. I mean really outlandishly, 3 times the size of any other pizza you've ever seen giant pizzas. An Extra Large momo's pizza is 30 inches across - 700 sq inches of gooey goodness. Calzones? Also big. That's a normal size knife and fork in that pic. So size is the gimmic here, but the real trick is that the pizza is just outstanding.

I said earlier that Tallahassee is not a food town. Momo's illustrates the one clear exception. Pizza here rocks. Even the very-cheap-open-late-greasy places like Hungry Howies are a step above. And places like Momo's and Decent Pizza are as good as I've had anywhere.

The Momo's I ate at this evening was on Market St near Timberlane and Thomasville road. There's another, much seedier and marginally more fun location on Tennessee near campus. My Calzone was Artichoke, Spinach, Ricotta and Mozzarella. Out of some attempt at moderation, I only ate half the thing, though at this very moment, the remaining half beckons, wrapped in foil, sitting on the other side of the desk. The crust is thin with this tiny edge of crispness, and the cheese is perfectly proportioned. There was also a "side salad" (also huge), and a couple of little tubs of marinara. The whole deal is homemade and awesome.

There's a vibe at Momo's. The staff isn't unfriendly exactly, but it's not exactly customer centric either - there's a certain cool-kid confident aloofness to the whole lot of them. They seem to be having a good time with each other - the pretty girls that work the register and the tall scruffy guys that make the pizza. To be honest, its kind of nice - the vibe works, and it all comes together effortlessly. Hanging around all those skinny college kids makes me feel really old, but that's a occupational hazard of eating all but the blandest corporate crap in Tallahassee. Actually that's not true. Skinny college kids work at the bland corporate locales as well. Youth here is inescapable.

One Fresh Happy People Stir Fry

OneFresh is a complete staple for the team out here. In my mind, it's about the most innovative place in Tallahassee, and maybe the best managed. There are a couple in town - the one we generally frequent is on Monroe at Tharpe, not far from Downtown.

OneFresh does a couple of things well, but the hands down best is their stir fry. The process goes something like this - you start with a laminated menu, and use a dry erase marker to select brown or white rice, a bunch of ingredients (veggies, chicken, tofu, etc), a sauce or two, and a little garlic or scallions or cilantro for on top. Its something like 18,000 choices if I'm doing my math right. Then these guys in back with gigantic woks over huge gas burners go to town and come up with your stir fry. Takes about 5 minutes costs about 6 bucks.

It stays crowded and seems to be doing well. As an added perk, there's a mailing list which puts you in line for some of the most bizarre, entertaining stream-of-conciousness emails I've seen from the owner of the place, Bill Poole, and occasionally gets you a free drink or some extra veggies.

So the stir fry rocks, but the trick of OneFresh is its people. They're really happy and really friendly and extremely competent. They're also there a while - the same people are working there as when I first went, a year ago. My hotel has switched staffs twice in that time, and they've got it a heck of a lot is easier. Its as if the OneFresh guys really like being there. Despite being the place being tasty and trendy and well decorated, these are folks who are slogging through the lunch rush, cooking stirfry over gazillion degree burners in a noisy kitchen and making change. My hunch: they're happy because they like each other. I don't know who sets that tone - if its just a matter of hiring, if its the line managers, or the owner. I don't know what you do to a business to make it lovable, what you do for a team to get it to stick, But somehow that's what someone did here. Lovable place creates lovable people creates lovable food. Which is something Bill might say in his weekly ramble.

Despite tornado watches and drenching downpour, Continental claims my flight is on time. So off to the airport to watch the delays stack up there.

CrepeVine - surprisingly tasty strip mall lunch

Tallahassee's exposure to French cuisine seems a little light, particularly on the Pensacola drag not far from the FSU campus. And now that there's the CrepeVine nestled in between the Gold's Gym and Hungry Howie's, well, the connection's still pretty light.

That said, the CrepeVine is an attractive little lunch spot - trendy and clean - with admirably creative wraps, and solid execution across all fronts. The menu is small and split into savory and sweet. The savory side is made up of half a dozen pre-configured crepes - generally a few meats (roast beef, chicken, ham), a couple of veggies, gooey mozarella, and a sauce - and some options for build-your-own. The sweet side is basically the same deal, with nutella and various sweet creamy things as fillings. Good? Yes, surprisingly good, if a bit greasy. French? Nope. Think of this things as smack in the middle between a gyro and a burrito and you've pretty much got the picture. The crepes are thick (for a crepe), substantial, and slightly sweet, and served gyro style with the bottom wrapped in parchment paper to hold the drippy sauce. Eating is a hold and chew operation - this is not a forkable crepe.

There are maybe 4 or 5 tables, mostly with low stools instead of actual chairs. The music is loud but not to the MoMo's in-your-face standard. There are two big LCD TVs playing nothing in particular, but it adds to the chic look of the place. One minor but welcome perk: they have Fiji water - almost every ther spot I've been to here is Dasani or the tap.

All told, I had a pre-config crepe (The Wobbles) and a bottle and spent a sliver more than 8 bucks. Good deal. This one gets onto the regular list.

As a side note: I may have had a significantly more enthused reaction had a not recently been introduced to one of the most phenomenal lunch joints I've ever encountered - the similarly themed, much lower budget, and much better FlipHappy on South Lamar in Austin.

Restarting the blog at solid cuban dive Gordo's in Tallahassee

It's been a couple of years - no less travel, no fewer interesting meals, just sort of lost interest after the first post or two.

For the last year, its been Tallahassee. In on Monday, back out to Austin on Thursday. A few other spots between.

Tallahassee is not a food town. Mostly, that sort of sucks, since food towns are much more exciting places to eat on a regular basis. But there are a few perks: quirky local places survive that in more sophisticated cities would be bulldozed to make way for look-alike asian-fusion upscale diners with rectangle plates. The lower bar means, well, lower bars: holes in the wall abound, and even the places that make at a go at fancy end up doing much more of their own thing than in places like Atlanta or DC or even Austin.

Today I ate lunch Gordo's near Pensacola and Ocala. It's a well worn place, a little dirty, with decoration flourishes primarily made up of beer posters, tropical-themed murals, and a tiny old television perched precariously on a shelf near the mens room. The food is cheap and solidly decent. Today I had the yellow rice - arroz con pollo. Very subtle, mild spices - not sure what all was in it, saffron and maybe cumin, chunks of tender chicken, rice and peas, fried plantains on the side. I've been a couple of days. The service, especially sitting outside is friendly and really really slow.

And that's more or less what it takes to get back on the circuit. I'll try to up my average 1.5 posts per year, and see where it goes from here.