Ryan Olson's Page

I want to give this restaurant a higher review because the Pho was easily the best I have ever had. It's a little family run place in a run-down strip mall out west. They had a nice condiment setup on the tables with all the Hoisin, Sriracha, Fish Sauce and Soy Sauce you'd expect at a Vietnamese restaurant. My Pho was served with an herb tray containing bean sprouts, basil, lime, hot chili slices, and a long dandelion-looking herb that I couldn't identify. (It smelled like cilantro.) The Pho was served with both beef sausage and thinly sliced steak (why choose when you can have both?), and the broth was perfect.

Rebecca had the Bun with Imperial Rolls. She assures me it was delicious, but I only had one bite.

However, the service was pretty poor. We ordered spring rolls that never came, and spent way too much time waiting for our check, then waiting for our check to be picked up. Kind of frustrating as we were only one of four seated tables in the restaurant.

The food was great, but we'll try other places before we go back.

One quotable line, and two and a half hours of moodiness. I truly do not understand how this rates as one of the best movies of last year. And that soundtrack, completely disconnected from anything that is going on in the movie? It had me on edge twenty minutes into the movie and NOTHING WAS HAPPENING. Guh.

My one previous trip to the state of Florida before moving here recently was through Miami when I went on a cruise about ten years ago. My girlfriend at the time and I ate at a restaurant that I remember as being South American, but in retrospect I assume was probably Cuban. At that place I had a skirt steak served with plantains and some sort of awesome herby-garlic sauce. Then I went on my cruise, flew back to Houston, then moved to the geographic center of our great nation, a place with apparently no Cuban food whatsoever. So when I moved to Florida, I was definitely looking forward to finding some Cuban restaurants.

We took our first foray into Cuban food last Saturday for lunch at Caribbean Grill in Boca Raton. I ordered what sounded like the dish I had had in Miami a decade ago, the Skirt Steak with Chimichurri sauce. Awesome. The beef was tender and flavorfull, the sauce had plenty of herbs and garlic and when mixed with the steak and the plantains on the side was wonderful. They also served with a hot sauce that was pretty spicy, not too vinegary, and had a nice garlic tang to it.

Bex had some sort of braised pork dish that was also very good, but didn't hold a candle to my skirt steak. Red beans and plantains rounded out both of our dishes, and were excellent as well. My only complaint was the price. $15 for a lunch was a bit steep for my skirt steak, but they did have a more reasonable lunch menu, I just needed to try to recreate that meal from my visit to Miami. Looking forward to trying some other places, but I'd definitely visit Caribbean Grill again.

When I moved to South Florida, one of the things I was most looking forward to was ready access to good bagels and lox. I read reviews of Flakowitz Bagel Inn, and it was high on my list of places to try. Bex and I went for breakfast last Saturday.

I ordered the Mini Nova plate with an onion bagel, and Bex had the corned beef hash. The bagel itself was pretty good. It was easily the softest bagel I've ever had. My only complaint was that the mini nova platter was a bit skimpy on the portions. It wasn't even enough salmon to cover both halves of the bagel it came with. (I couldn't bring myself to order the full nova or lox platters, which started at $15, as I recall.)

Bex's corned beef hash was not my favorite, either. The hash itself was chopped very fine, and ended up sitting on the plate in a single blob. The potatoes it was served with were soft and uninteresting.

I'm willing to give Flakowitz another shot, but will probably return for lunch or dinner. I've definitely had better breakfast in town.