Krik's Picks

In early February, my wife and I took our daughter and her family to Florida. We attended a family wedding in Boca Raton and then drove to the Orlando area to take them to Disney World (grandchildren are 7 and 5 years old). It was a long and somewhat grueling ride. There were six of us with luggage jammed into a Chevy Tahoe . I'm not used to driving a vehicle that large. Of course, we never could have fit into any smaller vehicle. But it still was crowded and a long drive from Boca. My daughter went to college in Florida. She had made plans to meet a college friend for lunch. So before driving to our Disney resort, we side-tracked to Winter Park . They met at a casual cafe on Park Avenue, right across the street from Central Park. We didn't want to intrude on their reunion. And besides, we wanted to walk around a little to stretch out the kinks after our long ride. Oh, and we wanted a nice quiet place to relax and have a glass of wine before going to Disney World. My hal...

I recently attended a conference in Naples, FL. My wife came along to warm up a little from winter. It’s not that we’re having such a cold winter in MN. But it’s not Florida. Each night of the conference, there was a reception at the end of the sessions. But a group of us usually felt like getting something a little more substantial despite noshing on reception food. So one night, we made our way into Old Naples to Sea Salt . There were 6 of us in the group, and we didn’t have a reservation when we arrived at about 7:30 p.m. Nevertheless, they were able to find us a table with only a short wait. We were sort of on a patio at the transition from the outdoor dining to the main door. They had a guitar soloist performing right at the entry. He was fairly aggressive, coming right up to people as they were waiting for a table and very obviously shilling for a tip. I tipped him early so that he’d leave us alone after that. Despite his brazenness, he was pretty entertaining, and he played ...

The annual meeting of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives brought a group of us from Land O'Lakes to the Walt Disney World Yacht & Beach Club Resort . On the first night of the meeting, a group of us went to the Yachtsman Steakhouse at the resort. So, cut me a little slack, it was a business dinner, as it happens, we all had exactly the same steak – an oak-fired rib eye. It was a perfectly adequate steak. Each of us had it cooked differently to our personal taste. No one complained that it wasn’t just the way they wanted it. The only differences were the sides and accompaniments that we had with the meal. Two of us had a Caesar salad. Classically prepared, it was just fine. The other two had lobster bisque. They both said it was good. We did order sautéed mushroom caps with the steak. One order was more than sufficient for all four of us. General consensus – they were fine, but nothing to rave about. The steaks came with garlic mashed potatoes. Li...

It was a busy year, 2007. So, we decided to spend New Year’s Eve in a sunny, warm locale. After checking several possibilities, we decided on Miami , specifically South Beach . We’ve been to South Beach before. In fact, this was our third vacation there in six years. The first time, we stayed at the Avalon . Two years later, we stayed at the Chelsea Hotel . After considering several possibilities, for this trip we decided to stay at the Winterhaven . Since we were going to be there for New Year’s Eve, we didn’t expect a bargain rate. And there were many things that we liked about the hotel. First of all, there’s location. You walk out the front door, cross Ocean Drive , and you’re in Lummus Park and the beach. It’s also only four or five blocks to the shopping on Lincoln Road and Espanola Way . The hotel offers some nice amenities – beach chairs and towels for guests to use on the beach, a daily breakfast in the lobby, newspapers delivered to your room. For a modest ‘res...

As we prepared for our Florida vacation, we decided to make reservations for the night we arrived (Saturday) and for New Year’s Eve. We figured we’d be able to find a restaurant for the night between those dates. After doing a little research, we picked Santo Restaurant . Their web site and other things we read noted that they had live music, the menu looked interesting, and the reviews about the food were good. So we made a reservation for New Year’s Eve. A few days later, I got a call. At first, I couldn’t figure out who was calling because the caller had such a thick Spanish accent. After I understood it was Santo calling, I then learned that for New Year’s Eve, they had a fixed price menu. After a brief discussion with my wife, we decided that’s not what we wanted. But, we still were excited about eating there, so we switched the reservation to Saturday. We made an 8:30 reservation. As we continued to talk about our plans, we began to wonder when the music would start o...

Our goal for our second night on South Beach was to just stroll up and down Ocean Drive and see what was available. We saw a lot of possibilities but finally settled on Medi. As I described in my opening post about our South Beach vacation, on Sunday, Ocean Drive was closed off and the restaurants expanded into the middle of the street. Medi is the sidewalk café in front of the Strand Ocean Drive . I also described how the cafés and restaurants have their hosts out on the sidewalk trying to induce customers to come in. We picked Medi because the menu looked good, the music playing in the background was a nice mix of rock (not techno), and they offered us a two-for-one drink special. Well, my martini was $14 and Linda’s Miami Vice cocktail was $18. We each got two of them, but you can make your own judgment about whether it was really a half-price deal. But if the drinks were over-priced, they still were good, and the food was very good. I had a Cuban st...

So when I started writing about our South Beach restaurants, I mentioned that we originally planned to eat at Santo for New Year’s Eve. When those plans fell through, we resumed our search. We were fairly specific in our criteria. We wanted a great dining experience – food, wine, ambiance. We wanted to order off the menu, not a set menu. We wanted to eat late, but be done in time to be on the beach for the fireworks at midnight. We used OpenTable to screen the possibilities for us. We found Creek 28 , and it sounded intriguing. It has a very attractive web site. We used a Google map to figure out it’s location. It’s about a mile north of the Winterhaven where we stayed and a block off of Collins. That sounded about right. We’d eat at 9 or 9:30, then finish in time to stroll the boardwalk and arrive back at Lummus Park in time for the fireworks. The menu posted online was very intriguing. So we made a reservation. Though we have developed a pretty good sense of how ...

For my reports on our South Beach vacation, I’ve focused on the places we had dinner. But I have to give a short post on one lunch that we had. The restaurant was TiramesU , located on Lincoln Drive . The tables spill out into the pedestrian mall. Several of the tables are next to a fountain. The day was hot and beautiful. The fountain was so appealing. We just had to eat there. We don’t usually eat very heavy at lunch time. So we split the daily soup special and a salad. Linda had a glass of Pinot Grigio and I had an Italian beer – Peroni . The soup was a carrot spinach soup. It was very good. I expected it to taste like a squash soup, probably because the bright orange color resembled squash. But the flavors were light with a nice blend of carrot without being overpowering. The salad also was very good – very fresh and flavorful. No dressing, just served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to your taste. But besides the food, we loved being on the mall next to the fo...

At the end of our Florida vacation, we rented a car, left sunny South Beach and drove up the coast 55 miles to visit relatives in Boca Raton . Just in time, too. The weatherman said a cold front was moving across Florida . Before we reached the Miami city limits driving north on I-95, it was raining. By the time we reached Boca, it was 20 degrees cooler. And the next day, the high temp was only in the 50s. As much fun as South Beach is, I don’t know what you’d do there if it rained or if it was too chilly to go to the beach. We had a nice visit, but we were having trouble finding a mutually convenient time to see one cousin’s family. It finally was worked out that on the day before we left for home, after we finished shopping and before they went to a high school basketball game, we’d all meet for pizza. The pizza place was Coal Mine Pizza . We were there a little early, and we had no trouble getting a table for eight. Our server told us that by 7 p.m., it would...