That Food Guy
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Kristina's Cafe and SPARC After Holidays Party
Kristina’s Cafe
3590 34th St NSaint Petersburg, FL 33713
(727) 526-6673
This is a bit of a combination blog, partly a food blog and partly a travel/adventure blog. It is the St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club’s annual after-the-holidays party that was hosted by Kristina’s Café in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is an interesting concept, the after-the-holidays party. From November through New Years there are big meals, lots of guests, preparations and decorations galore. With the passing of New Years it all suddenly stops. The end is a welcome respite from the hurried activity of the holidays but it is now kind of empty, a big vacuum. The after-the-holidays party fills the void with a minimum of fuss and bother. It is casual dress, meet at the restaurant, eat, drink and be merry with good friends, and when it is all over, it is time to go home. A party with no fuss, no muss and no bother.
The St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club, SPARC, is much like any other amateur radio club. It is made up of men and women of all ages, all professions, a general sampling of the community at large with a common single interest, communicating with radios. The amateur has nothing to do with their skill level. That merely means that they are not paid for what they do. And they do plenty. Amateur radio operators, familiarly known as hams, worldwide, are there when everything goes wrong. When earthquake, tornado, flood, any disaster strikes, hams are the first to get their own personal equipment on the air, sending the messages that coordinate the rescue and relief efforts. It may be weeks or even months before the conventional telephone systems are repaired. In the interim everyone relies on the ham operator to get the message through. There is no possible government program that could put that many skilled operators and that much sophisticated equipment in such strategic locations. Hams do it because it is their hobby. Makes me feel kind of proud to be one of them.
This year, as last, the party was scheduled at Kristina’s Café, a small family-style restaurant. Half of the dining room was set aside for the SPARC members and their family. The final tally was a few less than fifty attending. That is a lot of people to feed all at once. Usually, for affairs of this nature, the restaurant will offer a limited menu, many of the items prepared in advance to facilitate serving. It was open menu at Kristina’s and it is a rather extensive menu at that. Kristina’s does feature daily specials, Shepherd’s pie was featured today, and several people selected that delightful looking dish. That would have helped out a bit in the kitchen but most ordered a wide selection of the offerings.
Kristina’s is open 24-hours a day and serves breakfast anytime. The party time slot was between lunch and dinner. Our ordering options were for the entire menu, breakfast, lunch or dinner. My wife, Janis, chose the breakfast option and ordered one of her favorites; chocolate chip pancakes ($5.25). Her serving was three large, nicely browned pancakes with lots of chocolate chips. Although her favorite chocolate chip pancakes are made with a portion of buckwheat flour, these all wheat flour pancakes were tasty, nicely browned on the outside, cooked through on the inside (not doughy like some) and the chocolate chips melted and gooey but not burnt. There was a sufficient supply of butter and syrup provided. The three pancakes were a large serving for her and she finished most of them; the dogs got very little. That should attest to them being tasty and a worthy dish to sample. She had coffee ($1.25) along with her pancakes. I don’t know what is usual at Kristina’s but at the banquet seating of the party there were insulated carafes of coffee being passed around that the servers kept full.
It is really hard for me to pass up a hamburger. Somewhere inside me is a part of Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons… “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” And so it was that I chose the mushroom and bacon cheeseburger, deluxe of course with French fries (you have a choice of potatoes, $6.95). It is a large burger, served on a platter with the fries. A smaller platter along side has the vegetables, lettuce, onion, tomato and a pickle. When dining out I order ground meat medium well, just in case. My burger was cooked to order. There was no skimping on the bacon, cooked crisp, and the mushrooms. It was a mound ontop of the burger patty and it needed the melted cheese to hold it all together. By the time I added the lettuce, onion and tomato, it was a very tall burger and I really had to squeeze down to get a bite. The flavor was good, nice and juicy and didn’t really need any mayo or ketchup. The burger along with the fries was a big meal and I was quite satisfied. I had a soda with my burger. They feature Pepsi products so I chose a Mountain Dew ($1.35).
Entrees at Kristina’s are large. So, dessert is a “loosen the belt a notch” kind of thing. When the servers came around for dessert orders, I relented and chose a tapioca pudding with sprinkles of cinnamon and topped with a swirl of whipped cream ($1.25); a nice 4-ounce serving. It tasted like tapioca should, was sweet and cold and made for a nice touch after the heavier taste of the bacon mushroom cheeseburger and fries.
Think for a moment about this event. A small restaurant has almost fifty guests arrive almost all at once. They are seated, served their beverages of choice, meal orders taken and served in a time frame commensurate with the regular diners at the restaurant. Add to that the fact that the menu was not abbreviated. We all got to choose from the full, rather lengthy menu. There were a couple of times that a dish went to the wrong person, but that was rare. For the
most part each order came to exactly the right person. On top of that, checks came to the individual parties; our tab was correct. The servers out front and the staff in the kitchen did yeoman service to keep that all together. I can see why SPARC chose to return to Kristina’s. And by the way, the other half of the dining room was able to accommodate the regular customers, our servers doing admirable duty for them as well.
I am a new member to the SPARC club. Many of the people I only know as voices on the radio. The club meetings and events like this party bring the members together. It was pleasant conversation with people, once strangers, now friends. The food was good and I enjoyed that. T
he interaction with my fellow hams was the spice that turned a meal into a veritable feast; one I will long remember. At the end of the dinner hour, the club president passed out favors to all the guests. It was a select a wrapped gift from the basket event. We did quite well. A nice box of chocolates and a bag of double-fudge brownie mix.
If you have an interest in amateur radio and would like more information, visit the St. Petersburg Amateur radio Club at http://www.sparc-club.org/index.html . There you will find many links to provide all the information you may need to become a ham yourself.
Kristina’s Cafe3590 34th St NSaint Petersburg, FL 33713
(727) 526-6673
This is a bit of a combination blog, partly a food blog and partly a travel/adventure blog. It is the St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club’s annual after-the-holidays party that was hosted by Kristina’s Café in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is an interesting concept, the after-the-holidays party. From November through New Years there are big meals, lots of guests, preparations and decorations galore. With the passing of New Years it all suddenly stops. The end is a welcome respite from the hurried activity of the holidays but it is now kind of empty, a big vacuum. The after-the-holidays party fills the void with a minimum of fuss and bother. It is casual dress, meet at the restaurant, eat, drink and be merry with good friends, and when it is all over, it is time to go home. A party with no fuss, no muss and no bother.
The St. Petersburg Amateur Radio Club, SPARC, is much like any other amateur radio club. It is made up of men and women of all ages, all professions, a general sampling of the community at large with a common single interest, communicating with radios. The amateur has nothing to do with their skill level. That merely means that they are not paid for what they do. And they do plenty. Amateur radio operators, familiarly known as hams, worldwide, are there when everything goes wrong. When earthquake, tornado, flood, any disaster strikes, hams are the first to get their own personal equipment on the air, sending the messages that coordinate the rescue and relief efforts. It may be weeks or even months before the conventional telephone systems are repaired. In the interim everyone relies on the ham operator to get the message through. There is no possible government program that could put that many skilled operators and that much sophisticated equipment in such strategic locations. Hams do it because it is their hobby. Makes me feel kind of proud to be one of them.
This year, as last, the party was scheduled at Kristina’s Café, a small family-style restaurant. Half of the dining room was set aside for the SPARC members and their family. The final tally was a few less than fifty attending. That is a lot of people to feed all at once. Usually, for affairs of this nature, the restaurant will offer a limited menu, many of the items prepared in advance to facilitate serving. It was open menu at Kristina’s and it is a rather extensive menu at that. Kristina’s does feature daily specials, Shepherd’s pie was featured today, and several people selected that delightful looking dish. That would have helped out a bit in the kitchen but most ordered a wide selection of the offerings.
Kristina’s is open 24-hours a day and serves breakfast anytime. The party time slot was between lunch and dinner. Our ordering options were for the entire menu, breakfast, lunch or dinner. My wife, Janis, chose the breakfast option and ordered one of her favorites; chocolate chip pancakes ($5.25). Her serving was three large, nicely browned pancakes with lots of chocolate chips. Although her favorite chocolate chip pancakes are made with a portion of buckwheat flour, these all wheat flour pancakes were tasty, nicely browned on the outside, cooked through on the inside (not doughy like some) and the chocolate chips melted and gooey but not burnt. There was a sufficient supply of butter and syrup provided. The three pancakes were a large serving for her and she finished most of them; the dogs got very little. That should attest to them being tasty and a worthy dish to sample. She had coffee ($1.25) along with her pancakes. I don’t know what is usual at Kristina’s but at the banquet seating of the party there were insulated carafes of coffee being passed around that the servers kept full.
It is really hard for me to pass up a hamburger. Somewhere inside me is a part of Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons… “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” And so it was that I chose the mushroom and bacon cheeseburger, deluxe of course with French fries (you have a choice of potatoes, $6.95). It is a large burger, served on a platter with the fries. A smaller platter along side has the vegetables, lettuce, onion, tomato and a pickle. When dining out I order ground meat medium well, just in case. My burger was cooked to order. There was no skimping on the bacon, cooked crisp, and the mushrooms. It was a mound ontop of the burger patty and it needed the melted cheese to hold it all together. By the time I added the lettuce, onion and tomato, it was a very tall burger and I really had to squeeze down to get a bite. The flavor was good, nice and juicy and didn’t really need any mayo or ketchup. The burger along with the fries was a big meal and I was quite satisfied. I had a soda with my burger. They feature Pepsi products so I chose a Mountain Dew ($1.35).
Entrees at Kristina’s are large. So, dessert is a “loosen the belt a notch” kind of thing. When the servers came around for dessert orders, I relented and chose a tapioca pudding with sprinkles of cinnamon and topped with a swirl of whipped cream ($1.25); a nice 4-ounce serving. It tasted like tapioca should, was sweet and cold and made for a nice touch after the heavier taste of the bacon mushroom cheeseburger and fries.Think for a moment about this event. A small restaurant has almost fifty guests arrive almost all at once. They are seated, served their beverages of choice, meal orders taken and served in a time frame commensurate with the regular diners at the restaurant. Add to that the fact that the menu was not abbreviated. We all got to choose from the full, rather lengthy menu. There were a couple of times that a dish went to the wrong person, but that was rare. For the
most part each order came to exactly the right person. On top of that, checks came to the individual parties; our tab was correct. The servers out front and the staff in the kitchen did yeoman service to keep that all together. I can see why SPARC chose to return to Kristina’s. And by the way, the other half of the dining room was able to accommodate the regular customers, our servers doing admirable duty for them as well.I am a new member to the SPARC club. Many of the people I only know as voices on the radio. The club meetings and events like this party bring the members together. It was pleasant conversation with people, once strangers, now friends. The food was good and I enjoyed that. T
he interaction with my fellow hams was the spice that turned a meal into a veritable feast; one I will long remember. At the end of the dinner hour, the club president passed out favors to all the guests. It was a select a wrapped gift from the basket event. We did quite well. A nice box of chocolates and a bag of double-fudge brownie mix.If you have an interest in amateur radio and would like more information, visit the St. Petersburg Amateur radio Club at http://www.sparc-club.org/index.html . There you will find many links to provide all the information you may need to become a ham yourself.
Labels: amateur, Cafe, club, fellowship, hamburger, holiday, Kristina's, party, radio, St Petersburg. Albert
¶ 2:30 PM 0 Comments
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Bobby’s Café - Peters Creek, Alaska
The communities of Chugiak and Peters Creek are geographical areas rather than centralized towns. Scattered at various crossroads, there are place to get some basic groceries, gas and even rent a video. What is unique about the rural area of Chugiak and Peters Creek is that there are a couple of places to get good food to eat in a sit down restaurant or cafe. One of these is Bobby’s Café.
My host opted for the chef’s combo omelet. A three-egg folded omelet it was filled to capacity with the sausage, bacon, onions and mushrooms. The dish is served with home fries, toast and jelly. In presentation the omelet looked well cooked but not overdone. My host described it as being very tasty and a good combination of flavors and seasonings. Being that he usually leaves something on his plate, today’s empty plate spoke well for the meal.
I selected the farmer’s breakfast consisting of two eggs, home fries, bacon or sausage and a biscuit and gravy. I opted for the bacon well done and asked for the eggs over medium. In a busy kitchen on a hot griddle over easy and over medium are but a few seconds apart. My eggs were closer to over easy and I would have preferred them cooked a bit longer. The home fries are little cubes of e potatoes that were a bit crispy, nicely browned and very flavorful. I like them, they were good. The platter came with four slices of thick cut bacon cooked well done to just crispy, a good call by the cook. The biscuit was layered and flaky, the gravy was smooth, had flavor but not as much spicy sausage flavor as I have come to expect after sojourns to the south. Aside from the eggs that I wish had been cooked a bit longer, and the gravy I would have like with bit more spice, I found that the food was well prepared and of good quality and of adequate proportions.
Bobby’s has been around for a couple of years. When it was being built one wondered about the wisdom of building a small café right next door to the larger and long established Bella Vista Italian Restaurant. As it turns out, they are not competitors but complement one another. The Bella Vista is open for afternoon and evening dining while Bobby’s is open for breakfast and lunch, Monday thru Sunday, 8 AM to 4 PM. The building is clean and good repair. The dining room is light and airy with lots of windows. Seating is mainly tables and chairs that are sturdy enough to rest your elbows on.
The luncheon menu features salads, hamburgers, specialty and cold sandwiches, and patters of chicken strips or shrimp. I shall go back one day to sample these offerings but today’s visit was for breakfast. The menu offers eggs and omelets, pancakes, waffles and French toast. There is also a children’s menu section. Prices are what one would expect in rural Alaska but not too far away from Anchorage.
My host opted for the chef’s combo omelet. A three-egg folded omelet it was filled to capacity with the sausage, bacon, onions and mushrooms. The dish is served with home fries, toast and jelly. In presentation the omelet looked well cooked but not overdone. My host described it as being very tasty and a good combination of flavors and seasonings. Being that he usually leaves something on his plate, today’s empty plate spoke well for the meal.
I selected the farmer’s breakfast consisting of two eggs, home fries, bacon or sausage and a biscuit and gravy. I opted for the bacon well done and asked for the eggs over medium. In a busy kitchen on a hot griddle over easy and over medium are but a few seconds apart. My eggs were closer to over easy and I would have preferred them cooked a bit longer. The home fries are little cubes of e potatoes that were a bit crispy, nicely browned and very flavorful. I like them, they were good. The platter came with four slices of thick cut bacon cooked well done to just crispy, a good call by the cook. The biscuit was layered and flaky, the gravy was smooth, had flavor but not as much spicy sausage flavor as I have come to expect after sojourns to the south. Aside from the eggs that I wish had been cooked a bit longer, and the gravy I would have like with bit more spice, I found that the food was well prepared and of good quality and of adequate proportions.Our waitress was at the table as we seated ourselves and brought us our coffee, water and the menus right off. The order was cooked in a timely manner. During the meal our waitress as well as other dining room staff would ask how we liked the food and if we wanted refills for our coffee. I would rate the staff as attentive to our needs and wishes, quick with service when needed, polite and courteous to the patrons. Just as important, they were never pushy to clear the table when the meal was over, just offers for more coffee. Our overall impression was one satisfaction. To my friends and associates I will recommend Bobby’s for a nice leisurely meal.
Labels: Alaska, Bobby's, Cafe, eggs, omelet, Peters Creek
¶ 11:08 AM 0 Comments
