Lance’s Birthday at Datz

 

Lance has decided that his favorite Tampa restaurant is Datz.  So after an afternoon at Cigar City Brewing and walk around Cypress Point Park, we finished his birthday celebration with dinner (it’s been an extended week of festivities since we both worked on his actual birthday). 

 

On weekdays, Datz has a Happy Hour 3 – 6pm with half price apps and drink deals.  Plus, you beat the crowd and don’t have to wait for a table if you can get there that early.  

 

 

They have $4 local Florida beers on tap – but unfortunately they didn’t seem to have many local beers besides Cigar City (and we had just come from their brewery).  Lance did have a beer and I had the Barbados cocktail – with Velvet Falernum, Krakken dark rum, and fresh lime juice.  My drink was actually so strong that I ended up watering it down a bit. 

Since we got there towards the end of the Happy Hour, we went ahead and ordered the Mac Bites and Datchos to make sure we got them half off. 

The Mac Bites are made with Benton’s Tennessee hickory smoked bacon and jalapeño mac n’ cheese fried in crispy balls of deliciousness.  They come with a spicy Sriracha aioli dipping sauce. 

The Datchos are made with Datz’s famous chips, topped with chili, cheese, jalapeños, sour cream, blue cheese drizzle, and scallions.  You can get it topped with pulled pork, chicken, or short ribs, but we held off on those for now.  We really should have stopped there and just had that for our meal. 

For my main meal, I ordered the Piggly Figgly flatbread – with caramelized onions, black mission figs, applewood smoked bacon, roasted apples, arugula, goat cheese, toasted almonds, and balsamic glaze.  I actually only ate a few bites before wrapping it up for leftovers for the next day. 

Lance had the Hungry Man 2.0 – which was a seriously huge plateful of food.  It had two southern fried pork chops topped with sausage gravy, bacon onion marmalade over a mound of garlic mascarpone mashed potatoes.  He also took most of his meal home for leftovers the next day. 

Our waitress was really sweet and gave us a free birthday cupcake – chocolate with salted caramel (which we also took home for later). 

Datz is located at 2616 S MacDill Ave, Tampa, FL 33629 and is open Monday – Thursday 7am – 10pm, Friday 7am – 11pm, Saturday 8:30am – 11pm, and Sunday 8:30am – 3pm.

Uno Nachos

Lance got off work before me last night so he was in charge of dinner.  One of his specialties is what he calls “Uno Nachos”.  They are basically giant nachos made on tostada shells.  They are always slightly different depending on the ingredients we have in the fridge, but tonight they were made with pulled pork.  You can make them with whatever kind of meat you like – or just with beans if you want them vegetarian.  Here’s our recipe:   

Uno Nachos

Ingredients: 

·         Corn tostadas

·         Pulled pork (we used Lloyd’s Seasoned & Shredded Pork in BBQ Sauce)

·         Shredded cheddar cheese

·         Corn kernels (ours were fresh off the cob, but you could use canned)

·         Kale

·         Guacamole

·         Paprika

·         Hot Sauce (optional)

Directions:

1. If you are using fresh corn, shuck the corn and place in a pot of boiling water.  Cover the pot and return to a boil.  Cook for 3-5 minutes until tender. Remove corn from the cob and sprinkle paprika over the kernels.

2. Heat up your pulled pork (in a skillet or in the microwave). 

3. Melt cheese over your corn tostadas (in the oven or microwave).

4. Assemble your tostadas however you like them! 

Fly Bar - Tampa, FL

It's the weekend!  Well it is for Lance and me - he has off work Tues/Wed this week and I have off Wed/Thurs. We headed to Fly Bar for dinner tonight. I've been there several times and never been disappointed. 

 

Fly Bar is located downtown and has an urban feel with brick walls and eclectic art. They have a rooftop bar as well with a view of the downtown skyline, which is nice when the weather is cooler out (although tonight was a humid summer night so we stayed indoors). Since it's a Tuesday night it wasn't very busy.  We were seated immediately and started out with drinks - Lance got a Jai Alai and I got a "Bee's Knees" (St. George gin, orange blossom honey, lemon & star anise).  My drink was very refreshing & summery - and had a bit of licorice aftertaste with the star anise.

For dinner we ordered the duck confit fried rice and the nachos with ropa vieja (shredded braised beef).  The rice was like a gourmet version of take-out fried rice & the nacho portion was huge. I've ordered the nachos in the past so that's a go-to dish at Fly Bar. I liked the rice but I'll probably try something else on the menu next time.

They have happy hour food & drink specials every day from 4pm-5:30pm (unfortunately I didn't get off work until 7pm tonight so we couldn't take part in those). They do also offer late night specials 10pm-close Sunday-Thursday and 11pm-close Friday-Saturday.

Fly Bar is located at 1202 N. Franklin St, Tampa, FL 33602 and open from 4pm - 3am Monday through Sunday.