The Bricks – Ybor City

 

Yesterday we headed to Ybor City to grab some lunch.  I had heard great reviews about a restaurant called The Bricks, but hadn’t had the chance to try it out before. 

As expected, it is located in a brick building, with exposed brick walls in the interior.  It is clearly aimed at a young crowd – The Skatepark of Tampa apparently opened it after decades of sending business to other local bars and restaurants. 

When you walk in, the music sounds like you might be in a Pac Sun or Tilly’s.  The TVs had footage of 80’s skateboarding kids and The Disney Channel playing.  They had ads for “The Church of Nintendo” game nights on Mondays, and they featured a chorizo soup called “Chorizard” (for those of you that didn’t grow up as 90’s kids, there was a Pokémon dragon named Charizard…I never even had any Pokémon cards, but I still recognized the name…)  

I was pretty excited to see Cigar City’s Cubano Espresso Brown Ale on the drink menu.  It’s a coffee beer brewed with local coffee beans, and tastes almost more like a Starbucks drink than a beer.   

 

I ordered The Bird and Pig sandwich – with roasted pulled chicken, bacon, apples, brie, and agave served on sweet bread.  From their Yelp reviews, it seems that this is pretty much everyone’s favorite sandwich there.  It was the perfect mix of savory and sweet – and they even served it presented in a heart shape! I had the mixed greens salad as my side, which was tossed in a tangy dressing. 

Lance had The Burrito – with oven roasted pork, black bean-corn relish, cheddar, and avocado cream in a pressed flour tortilla.  I thought the pressed tortilla was much better than the normal cold tortilla you’d get at a typical burrito restaurant. 

Whether you’re a skateboarder or not, I’d highly recommend checking this place out. 

The Bricks is located at 1327 E 7th Ave, Tampa, FL 33605  and is open 11am – 1am Monday – Sunday.       

Orlando Brewing, Yum-mi Sandwiches & Kilwins

 

Last week we took a day trip to Orlando on our day off.  We started off at Harry P. Leu Gardens – I had never been there before, but it’s a beautiful 50 acre botanical garden. 

 

 

 

Luckily we got lots of walking in at the gardens because we spent the rest of the day eating & drinking.  We stopped for a quick lunch at Yum-mi Sandwiches, which serves Vietnamese style banh-mi sandwiches. 

It was a super casual restaurant but the food was very good.  We split the Shrimp & Pork Yum-Yum Crunch Rolls, then each had our own sandwich.   

Lance ordered the V.P. – with Vietnamese-style Philly steak, cheese, and 2 eggs on top.  Mine was the Miss Piggy – with caramelized pork belly, lettuce, and tomatoes.  I added an egg to the top since the egg on Lance’s sounded so good.  It didn’t compete with Bamboozle, but I was happy with our food.  

 

Afterwards we headed to Orlando Brewing.  Surprisingly, there aren’t very many local breweries in the area – we’re spoiled with having several dozen in the Tampa Bay area.  I tried a flight with a variety of beers – the best by far was the Girl Stout – which tasted like liquid Thin Mint cookies. 

 

 

 

 

 

We picked up a copy of Southern Brew News which had a map of every brewery in the Southeast.  Lance has framed it and started marking all the ones we’ve been to (we’ve got a lot to go – Florida has 104…)

We finished the day in Celebration, FL where they have fake snow every evening at Christmas time.  It was really just bubbles (I don’t know why I was expecting shaved ice...guess it would melt instantly).   

Our “dinner” was ice cream from Kilwins (we couldn’t resist the waffle cone smell coming out the front door).   

Yum-mi Sandwiches is located at 1227 North Mills Avenue, Orlando, FL 32803 and is open 10 am – 8pm Monday – Tuesday, and Thursday - Saturday, and 10 am – 6pm on Sundays (they are closed Wednesdays).  

 

Orlando Brewing is located at 1301 Atlanta Avenue, Orlando, FL 32806 and is open 3pm – 10pm Monday through Thursday, 1pm – 12am Friday & Saturday, and 1pm – 9pm on Sunday. 

Kilwins has several locations – the one we visited was located at 671 Front Street, Kissimmee, FL 34747 and is open 11am – 10pm Sunday through Thursday and 11am – 11pm Friday & Saturday. 

Reservations Gourmet-To-Go – Tampa, FL

 

I bought a Creative Loafing deal for Reservations Gourmet-To-Go a month or so ago because I’ve heard so many great things about this restaurant.  It is on Tasting Tampa’s Top Ten Restaurants in Seminole Heights and they only have positive reviews on Yelp, Urbanspoon, and Facebook. 

So I was sad to see my friend Raena’s post yesterday saying that Reservations was going to shut their doors at the end of the month.  Since Lance and I both had Tuesday off work, we decided to head to Seminole Heights and try them out for lunch.

 

With our CL deal, we had $30 to spend – and since the prices are all so reasonable, we got a LOT of food for that much. 

 

It was cold out yesterday – it got to the 30’s at night, which for a Floridian felt like Antarctica! So the first thing I ordered was a hot cup of tea.  Lance had a beer (they only had one to choose from – Uinta Brewing Company’s Baba Black Lager). 

 

For our meals, we each ordered sandwiches – I had the Meatball Parmesan and Lance had the Tampa Cheese Steak.  We got the large size, but we could have easily filled up on the small. 

OMG they were amazing.  The meatballs were handmade, topped with Bolognese sauce, parmesan, and mozzarella.  The Italian bread was perfectly crispy.  Lance’s sandwich was generously loaded with slices of grilled steak, sautéed onions and mushrooms, and topped with horseradish mayo dressing, blue cheese drizzle, and lettuce.  Since each large sandwich was already cut in 2, we swapped halves and got to try a bit of each. 

 

 

They were voted Best Carrot Cake by Creative Loafing Best of the Bay 2012, so we got a slice to go (we didn’t have any room after our huge lunches).  We enjoyed it later that evening and it did not disappoint.  It was moist and filled with plenty of carrot, raisin, and nut chunks.  The cream cheese frosting was so delicious that I could have eaten it alone with a spoon. 

 

 

It’s a real shame that I didn’t discover this place sooner.  Make sure to go try their incredible food while you still can! 

Reservations Gourmet-To-Go is located at 4703 N Nebraska Ave, Tampa, FL 33603.  Here’s their schedule for the remainder of the month:

November 20^th, 21^st, 25^th, 26^th, and 28^th for lunch 11:30am – 3pm
November 21^st & 22^nd - After Dark dining, 6pm – 10pm