Daily Loaf

Song Huong Vietnamese Restaurant
4040 W Waters Ave., Tampa, 813-880-9676

Hours: 10am- 10pm Wed- Mon, Closed Tuesday

For the budget conscious diner, I recommend Vietnamese cuisine: rice vermicelli, grilled beef and pork, steamed shrimp and piles of vegetables and herbs like sprouts, cilantro, lemongrass, cucumbers and carrots flavored with tart lime, spicy chili or briny fish sauce. The flavors are lively and fresh and the price is right, with many entrees around $7.95.

Song Huong is another one of those locations that you may have driven by countless times. Perhaps you stopped in for karaoke night next door at Good Time Charlie’s. Terracotta tile and yellow tablecloths beckon you into this well-lit establishment. A large flatscreen television entertains (presumably the children) with Nickelodeon. The owner greets you and is ready to feed you. Read the rest of this entry »

Avocado Café n’ Bakery
14941 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa, 813-631-9703‎
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m-7 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

As if Acropolis and Mr. Dunderbak’s weren’t big enough draws to this little North Tampa strip center, there’s also tasty Venezuelan fare at Avocado Café n’ Bakery. If you have ever tasted an arepa con queso at a local art festival and thought it was the best thing ever, you’ll love this place. There are seven arepa variations offered — all at $5.49 each or less — though you may need two of them. One of the best is the Pabellon arepa: mildly seasoned shredded beef, black beans and cheese on the white corn cake.

There’s also Read the rest of this entry »

Great sushi- now closer to home (for me, anyway).

I was introduced to Origami’s Hillsborough Avenue location about a year ago.  They have a new location on Waters Avenue and a recent move to a new residence put me dangerously close to this location.

There’s a huge selection of makimono, my favorite being Read the rest of this entry »

Guess that Restaurant.com gift certificate I recently purchased is null and void.  I was just at Abol Bunna with the International Friends Meetup group and we enjoyed the food and service.  Sluggish economy + sluggish summer = another one bites the dust.

Here’s the email I received tonight from the restaurant: Read the rest of this entry »

Tampa has seen a couple of cupcake bakeries pop up in the last couple of years, so I set out to compare their products; specifically, the simplest of all these sweets: a vanilla cupcake.

In Westchase, there are now two places that offer cupcakes. When Swirls on Race Track Road first opened, they had multiple cupcake flavors as well as several other baked goods. Currently, they seem to be concentrating more on gelato, coffees and a few lunch items. Good thing, because the cupcakes were awful. The cake was dry and oddly solid, as if previously frozen, and the frosting was greasy and flavorless. Thankfully, their gourmet gelato, including unique flavors like Guinness and avocado, are worth the visit.

On Linebaugh is Read the rest of this entry »

If you are ever frustrated with the lack of parking at the USF-area Panera Bread on Bruce B. Downs (and the nearby bank security guard who will threaten your vehicle’s integrity if you dare park in their lot), drive down the street a little further and eat instead at Byblos Pitas.

Decor: Ikea. Food: fast, fresh Lebanese for under $10.

It’s a strip mall treasure which opened about a year ago. Despite the restaurant’s name, the owners are not related to the family that runs the long-standing Byblos Cafe in south Tampa, but are good friends.

Choose a stuffing for your pita: maybe deliciously seasoned steak shawarma, chicken kabob or falafel. Pick your vegetables and sauces to fill it: hummus, labneh, tomatoes, and more. Watch them expertly fold it like a giant burrito and heat it on a sandwich press. Try a side of baba ghanouj, red lentil soup, or go for the Greek or Caesar salad.

Fresh, tasty and inexpensive, Byblos is a bright spot to sit with some good grub and your laptop. Leave the hipsters to their Panera.

Byblos Pitas
2734 University Square Dr,, Tampa, 813-849-5050
www.byblospitas.com

I’m over small plates.  It doesn’t matter if you call them sharing plates, crudi, mezze, tapas, appetizers or dim sum. Two things invariably happen when I eat at one of the “small plates” peddlers: I spend way more than is reasonable and I leave hungry. There have been some Saturdays recently when, a couple hours after eating at this type of trendy restaurant, I ended up at the Taco Bus for second dinner. My experience mimicked Robin Dorian’s from Small Plates= Big Bills.

Last May, in Vegas, I attended what was supposed to be an all-you-can-eat tapas dinner at a Spanish restaurant and paid a high “all-inclusive” price. When it was scheduled the month before, my instinct had told me it might not be an ideal situation. I hesitated and discussed it with the restaurant, but agreed to attend because it was a reunion. We had to scrounge for scraps of food off of tiny plates. I left there sober, hungry and resentful. I should have listened to my gut. Read the rest of this entry »

Tucked into a strip mall near USF’s main campus, along with a sports bar and tanning salon, you’ll find Peter Taylor’s passion project: Wood Fired Pizza Wine Bar. From the rich orange and gold colors of the floor to the wood burning oven visible from every seat in the house, the entire place was assembled by Taylor’s own hands.

Sinatra music plays in the background and there is not a flatscreen TV to be found. Leather seats convince you to stay a while to enjoy your meal and conversation. Pizzas named Sophia and Raquel are an homage to silver screen icons.

Taylor mans the oven and, if you ask, he’ll tell you how the 16th century cannonball at the front of the store represents the birth of pizza, when Italians first thought to put the once-considered-poisonous tomato on yeast bread. He will convey the story of true Neapolitan pizza and how it became bastardized after arriving in America. That said, he does not claim to make true Neapolitan pies. Read the rest of this entry »

The lady making the tortillas

Excited by Chef Rene Valenzuela’s expansion of his empire, and because I ‘ve been a taco zealot since CL’s Tournament of Tacos in March, I ran right to Taqueria Monterrey on the first day open.

Taqueria Monterrey Day 1:  An artist is still painting signs on the walls.  He asks me to verify his spelling of the word ’Also’ and says the design is inspired by old world Spain.

In keeping with CL’s Beef Week, I ordered Read the rest of this entry »

Considering the buzz about Tampa’s two Ethiopian restaurants (Queen of Sheba and Abol Bunna), I was excited to find cuisine available from another African country – Nigeria.  African Eateries (320 W. Waters Ave., Tampa, 813-443-5152) has been open for about two months and this small, cafeteria-style spot is more of a home kitchen than a restaurant.  The same young lady that takes your order also cooks it and settles the bill at the end.  If the drink cooler had not been behind a counter, they might have suggested we help ourselves.  My friend Laurie says this makes it a micro-restaurant.

Some dishes are available with rice or with pounded yam: a large steaming ball of pale dough which we were told to tear and dip into the stews. Read the rest of this entry »