Anyways
Our family are very big travelers and are fortunate enough to be able to travel the world every year. Last year our big trip was St. John and the year before we took a 3 week tour through Tokyo, Southeast Asia, and Rome and there are always little trips to Las Vegas and New York and California thrown into the mix for various reasons. We love taking these trips because of the many things they afford, most paramount among them, the food.
Key West made its fortune as a shipwreck town. The Keys were a popular spot for ships to stop on their way to wherever from all over. The shallow reefs would cause many of these ships to crash and would then be salvaged by wrecking crews. I recommend the 1942 film Reap the Wild Wind, starring John Wayne, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. But the point I'm trying to make is that Key West is riddled with all kinds of culinary influences from across the globe with a strong emphasis on their fresh seafood. Here are a couple of the best and worst gastro highlights of the trip.
Let me start by saying that our timing was perfect. First and foremost we narrowly missed this years maiden of wind and rain so elegantly named Irene, but we also arrived on a Saturday which held two implications. The first being that this particular weekend was Key West Lobster Fest. Yup. One of Key West's many weekend celebrations, this one in particular celebrates the fresh bounty of the decadent crustacean that Key West has been blessed with. Let me also take this time to inform those who are unaware of Duval St. about its existence. Like many other great Southern cities, Key West has a main drag filled with all sorts of debauchery. The most popular of these is Bourbon St. in New Orleans, there is Beall St. in Memphis, and Austin has 6th St. Key West has Duval St., a long stretch of open air bars, cigar shops, t-shirt stops, and hotels. And on this particular night, it felt like I was back at Mardi Gras, well, not really as wild, but pretty crowded.
We were staying at the Westin right down the street from Duval. We wandered around for a short while until we fund this. A juicy, little bit chewy as to be expected, grilled lobster tail, Cajun potatoes, corn on the cob, and a sinfully delightful citrus butter for dipping purposes. This was the best street food I've ever eaten, next to a lamb kabob I had in Aix en Provence, France. The irony of eating what would normally be a $40 meal dressed up on anything other than this paper plate, in the middle of Duval St., with a beer in a plastic cup, was amusing. This was the first time I've ever eaten lobster standing up, and it was one of the best I've had.
The second implication of arriving on a Saturday was that the next day was Sunday. Pretty crazy, I know. But on this particular Sunday we ventured down to the pool for a relaxing first full day in the sun. When lunch time approached we walked about 13 steps over to the poolside bar, which just so happened to be attached to the indoor hotel restaurant, which just so happens to serve a Sunday only brunch. We were mindfully unaware of this weekly phenomenon and just as I was getting ready to order a beer and some conch fritters (a Key West staple, they refer to themselves as the Conch Republic, which I always thought was the Bahamas but alas, I'm getting off topic) we were informed of this brunch. So naturally I changed my beverage from a beer to a mimosa (in my opinion the only beverage option when brunching) and set off on my journey. From the outside it looked like your typical hotel breakfast buffet, but appearances can be deceiving.
Sliced duck breast with sesame noodles, tuna tartar, seared tuna, sushi, scallop ceviche, meats and cheeses, smoked fish spread, caprese salad, crab claws, lobster potstickers, truffled gnochi wantons, seafood piallia, seaweed salad, gravlax, ginger garlic ribs and that is just about half of it. This is the list of the items I feasted on and doesn't include the normal assortment of breakfast fare and what was on the carving boards. Once I was finished with the savory, I moved to the sweet. I take a great deal of pride in saying that I tried most of the desserts, all of which were very enjoyable.
My parents favorite criticism of me is that I tend to find anything that impresses me to be the greatest thing ever. I can honestly say that out of all the country club Easter/Father's day/Mother's day/4th of July brunches and buffets as well as the countless hotel breakfast buffets, this is, far and away, the greatest buffet experience I have had. The selection was unlike any I've seen, and the execution was just as impressive.
This hotel restaurant really knows what they are doing because the second greatest meal I had while in Key West was this buffet, the greatest was a dinner we had there on our second to last night.
These two pictures don't do the food justice, especially because like many of the pictures I took of food, I didn't remember to take the picture until after I had already eaten some of it. We started with an appetizer of which was forgettable, but then, the soup course. French onion soup with rosemary roasted onions, garlic infused croutons (brioche I think), and a Gruyere crust. I know the picture looks like it didn't agree with me and came out the way it went in, but that was certainly not the case. Sorry mom and dad, but this was the greatest onion soup I've ever had. The broth wasn't too salty, the croutons stayed crispy in the middle and the Gruyere was a much better option than the usual Swiss. A symphony of flavors and textures.
For my entree I chose the herb roasted chicken. By this time I was sick of eating seafood, so chicken was a welcoming beacon on the menu. An herb roasted chicken breast, with the wing still intact, sat atop a celery root puree with a shallot and roasted tomato pan jus and haricot verts. The chicken was perfectly cooked with the right herbs, the celery root puree (has been my preference over plain mashed potatoes for awhile now) was silky smooth and the pan jus had a flavor that I can only express as divine. The crunchy shallots and verts gave a stark contrasting texture to the rest of the dish to round it out as a culinary achievement worthy of the greatest chefs. Ok, maybe I'm giving too much praise to a simple chicken dish, but given the fact that I had been eating seafood for every meal over the last 8 days made this simple dish that much more successful. At any rate it was damn good.
Notice how the title to this post is Best and Worst...there weren't too many "worsts", but still more to come.
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