The Fish House That Tried

Being a kitchen mongrel, I know how hard it can be to prepare, execute, and time every dish coming from the kitchen perfectly.  What is equally difficult is conceiving and designing a menu that will delight the taste buds.  You must start off with high quality, flavorful ingredients.  After procurement, the kitchen then needs to have the ability to transform the delectable ingredients into something spectacular;  An experience that every customer who spends their hard earned dollars at your concept will be fired up to share with others.  Unfortunately, Mitchell's Fish House at WestShore Plaza falls short of these tasks.  While the atmosphere and decor are inviting, the concept has some growing up to do before it will be able to wow the taste buds of foodies in the area.   Guests can look into the area where they prepare the fish and store them daily, an open fresh oyster bar for those who want to slide down some hand shucked oysters, and an open kitchen that also poses as a very small seafood market.  The fresh seafood display case is only adorned with selective fillets of very few fish.  I would recommend going to Cox's Seafood off the corner of Dale Mabry and Sligh if you want fresh, seasonal, varied selections of raw seafood.  I also strive to give a place the chance to show me their chops, however, there were some very major issues with the food we received.  The roasted oysters, while decently tasty, were swimming in butter and grease.  The lobster tail and beef tips combo was plated haphazardly with both items being overcooked and somewhat chewy.  The other dishes were on par with this observation, except for the calamari.  The lightly breaded and fried squid was the most tender I have had in a long time.  The presentation was decent, with a light, accommodating sauce, lemon slices, and asparagus that was a little overcooked.  Overall, the experience was what you would expect from a casual, corporate, seafood restaurant.  The only other drawback was the price points for each dish.  While not expensive for a fish house,  I expect some more sophistication from the kitchen, and the concept as a whole.

Do You Smoke? Unfortunately, we do not!

We love BBQ, yet we do not have an awesome smoker to make the magic happen.  There is a way that an equally delicious BBQ dish can be made.  Put your favorite dry rub on your favorite low and slow slab of protein;  we chose to use good quality pork back ribs.  We made our own dry rub with a large proportion of high quality smoked paprika to help us get some smokey aroma into the ribs.  From there, the ribs sat for 12 hours, wrapped in foil, and cooked on 300 for roughly 3 hours.  Once the ribs were fall of the bone tender, we put a layer of BBQ sauce on top, placed the rack under the broiler, caramelized the sauce, and repeated this for a couple of times to get a nice layer of flavor.  The taste of the pork was still intact all the while a delicious BBQ meal with corn on the cob was scarfed down. 

From the scrap pile to the skillet!

In the professional kitchen, food scraps that can be used for another purpose are rarely thrown out.  Bits and pieces of carrots, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, chiles, and so on can be used to make stocks and soups.  We take this simple philosophy to heart at home as well.  Throughout the week we save our bits of vegetable and fruit pieces and turn then into delicious meals.  This time around we have parts of jalapenos, tomatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and red bell peppers.  We took all the left over scraps, tossed them in olive oil, added some garlic and herbs, and roasted then on 425F until tender.  We then took the roasted pieces and pureed them up with chicken broth, finished it off with some salt and pepper, and ate a hearty, tasty meal.  Try using your scraps for dinner!

The Taste Bud Foreplay

What is the best foreplay to arouse the taste buds?  Simple, flavorful, souvlaki is your answer.  This greek inspired street food item is versatile, easy to make, healthy, hearty, and definitely arousing to the senses.  Here is an easy recipe to follow:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cat-cora/souvlaki-small-skewers-of-pork-recipe.html.  We looked at it to get an idea of what ingredients we needed and then winged it.  I used red wine and apple cider vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, lemon juice freshly squeezed in the juicer, fennel, and smoked paprika, red bell pepper, and onion.  We used chicken instead of pork and added twice as much garlic to the marinade.  If you do not have a grill, you can use a cast iron grill pan as we did.  Here is what we came up with.

Kung Fu Tea Time...

Mandi and I were introduced to a new concept in Tampa called Kung Fu Tea.  They serve many different yummy tea drinks including taro milk tea with red bean and passion fruit slushy with boba.  The quality of the teas and other ingredients they use are top notch.  We look forward to seeing this concept build itself here.  Unfortunately, there is only one location on Fowler Ave right now, however, with how busy they get we hope to see them give Star Bucks and the like a run for their money.

The Box Dunder

There are few places that can truly profess their love for beer.  Mr. Dunderbak's in New Tampa is a tucked away biergarten that is must to experience.  The food is decent, but I do not go to have a knock your socks off meal, I go for the hundreds of beers to choose from.  While I go not drink like fish, I do enjoy trying out new brews.  It is important for me to know what is floating around out there in case I need to pair or use a beer with some of my cooking.  The beer that I had the server pick for me was on the darker, slightly sweet, and on the bitter side.  The flavor notes melted seamlessly with my roast beef and turkey on pumpernickel sammy.  For the beer geeks out there, you can order huge, tall, glasses of beer and go to town.  The cuisine is a step up from most bar food, however do not expect any Michelin quality fare.  The food goes well with the concept and of course the main attraction, the brews.  You can also pick up some good sausages and cold cuts at the deli counter or pick up some German and European snacks, treats, candies, beer mugs, condiments, and many other items. 

The Jambon-Beurre on Steroids

So what is Jambon-Beurre you ask?  In Paris, it is a sandwich of bread, ham, and butter.  Now take that simple yet astonishingly pleasing idea and add brie, green apples, and cracked black pepper.  You get a simple flavor combination explosion in your mouth.

The Recipe:
French Baguette
Boars Head Tavern Ham or similar, salty, slightly sweet, quality sliced ham.
Prosciutto De Parma 
Double cream brie
Thinly sliced sour green apples
Unsalted butter
Cracked black pepper

1.  Throw it all on the bread.  Press it hot and crisp.  Be prepared for a food coma.

It is that easy!