I recently had all three of my daughters for a visit. It's always a fun time, but always goes way too fast! We went to The Garden in downtown St. Pete, for dinner before heading to Muvico at BayWalk to see The Avengers. The girls had seen it, but I hadn't. What a fun movie!
Our dinner at The Garden was very peculiar. Gina and I had eaten there a few years ago, and the food was delicious! However, there was some problem going on in the kitchen this night. We all ordered fries with your sandwich, but when the waitress brought out our dishes, she apologized and said there were no fries, so we had potato salad instead. We were a bit miffed, thinking she should have told us that beforehand. Secondly, my grilled cheese sandwich was to have bacon and roasted tomatoes also. The one pic above shows the first sandwich I received, cheese only. Conspicuously missing, was Mia's plate. She had ordered the chicken souvlaki sandwich, minus the tomatoes and onion. A few minutes later, the waitress appeared and said that another waitress had taken Mia's dish by mistake, and Mia's sandwich would have the tomatoes and onions. At that point, we said, wait a minute! Is there a problem in the kitchen??? We could see how flustered she was. She said it was like this all afternoon. We asked to speak to the manager. So the manager offered to make things right. She gave us a free appetizer (we chose the caprice salad) to tide us over until we all got our dishes. When we finally got all of the right stuff, it was delicious!!! Adele had the Maryland Crab Cake sandwich ("the best in town", and it was!), and Gina had the Crispy Chicken Ranch Wrap. Our waitress was so nice, despite her being so frazzled with the goings on there . . . she gave us a free dessert! We chose the flourless chocolate cake. YUM!
After the movie, we headed over to Paciugo for gelato! Always a must on a visit! Mia wanted to try the beignets at the Cajun restaurant a couple doors down from Paciugo, so we bought an order, ate two of them and brought the third back to the apartment where Mia finished it off!
The next morning, we headed over to Sunset Beach. It was a beautiful day and the water was wonderful, not too hot yet; the type when you don't want to get out!
After we got back from the beach, we cleaned ourselves up. We had tickets to see the Tampa Bay Rays play the New York Yankees at Tropicana Field downtown. To simplify getting in and out, we decided to forego the parking lots around the stadium and the bottleneck after the game. Instead, I parked in a parking garage downtown for $5. We walked a block over to Meze for dinner. We were in the mood for some shawarma, after seeing that last scene after the credits in The Avengers. We enjoyed it tremendously! Then we went to Le macaroon for some dessert before heading a block over to catch the free shuttle over to the stadium. After a brief 4 minute ride, we were at the gate!
The desserts were excellent! Our first time there! You can tell by the logos on the girls' t-shirts, who they were rooting for. The Rays won 4-3. Boo! Hoo! :-) But we had fun!
On their last day here, we went to Three Birds Tavern, several blocks from my apartment, for lunch. Oh, my! Another winning lunch! We started off with a large order of sweet potato fries. Adele had the Tavern salad with chicken, Mia had the Chicken and Cheese sandwich, I had a salad with roasted tomato dressing and roasted beet risotto and Gina had the Muffaletta. For dessert we shared a Chunky Monkey Bread Pudding (a most definite repeat!) and the pina colada cheese cake.
After lunch, we headed over for a quick stop at Mazzaro's. I got some lupini beans, and the girls picked up some pasta for their mom. The visit was so much fun! I wish it was for longer!
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