Octobeer!

Dear friends,

Fall is here and we are presented with an ever increasing supply of "pumpkin" themed beers. I've sampled 4 to let you know my take on the market.

I have not sampled any macro brew pumpkin beers, but have tried to stick to the following 4 well known microbreweries' offerings.


Pumpkinhead Ale
Shipyard Brewery
Maine
(5 thumbs up!)
By far, my favorite Halloween beer. It doesn't actually have any pumpkin in it, but you'd swear you were drinking the beer equivalent of a pumpkin pie with this light ale flavored with nutmeg and other subtle fall spices.


Punk
Dogfish Head Brewery
Delaware
(4 thumbs up!)
The runner up. It's actually brewed with pumpkin as well as spices. It's a bit stronger (7%) and tastes really hearty. It is sold in 4 packs, but you'd be struggling to get through all 4.

Pumpkin Ale
Smuttynose Brewing Co.
New Hampshire
(5 thumbs down!)
3 of us tried this beer and couldn't get past one sip. It sucked. Don't buy it.

Pumking
Souther Tier Brewing Co
New York
(1.5 thumbs up)
Very strong (9%) and brewed with real pumpkin. It was an imperial style, thus the high alcohol content. We thought it smelled really stinky, but had a better taste. It wasn't great, and we didn't finish the large bottle that it came in.

Get drinkin, america!

Mildred's Big City Food

3445 W University Ave
Gainesville, FL 32607-2402
(352) 371-1711

1.5 Thumbs up (WAAAAY overpriced and overrated).

Price Range: this is one of the most expensive restaurants in Gainesville. Each dish easily costs between 16 and 30 dollars.

In earlier posts, I have talked about "Gainesville Gourmet," or "Faux Fancy." Both terms succinctly define the observation that "high-end" restaurants in this town are nothing more than mediocre restaurants with high prices, fancy decor, and nothing but hype to back up their food. Mildreds is the epitome of "Faux Fancy," the zenith of the pretension scale, the lowest cost to quality ratio that there could be in town. They are all hype and no substance. Don't get me wrong, the food isn't bad. It's just nothing special.

I ate a sampling of multiple dishes, including many meat based meals, to reach this conclusion.

To start, I had the spinach, goat cheese, pistachio and persimmon saladThe first thing I noticed was that the dressing was way too strong. If you're going to include several unusual items in your salad (especially the subtly unique flavor of persimmon), you can't overload us on the salad dressing. It was very flavorful, but a bit over the top. The spinach was extremely large and thick, making for a very chewy texture. It wasn't bad, just unusual.

Someone else in our party got a salad that included "dried fruit" which just turned out to be raisins.

For the entrees, we sampled the menu quite thoroughly.

One dish was pan seared grouper with spinach and lemon risotto.According to the meal's eater, "The grouper was great, totally fine and crispy. There was no sauce on it, but it was good and the way I like it (light fried/seared fish). The risotto was really not good. The rice wasn't cooked long enough and it wasn't creamy. I've made risotto twice before and it's been better than that." In my opinion, after sampling the fish myself, it was very flavorless and boring. Combined with the miserable risotto, this dish was aesthetically pleasing, but tasted like a dud.

Another meal was the duck with glazed chestnuts. According to the meal's eater, "The glazed chestnuts were surprisingly good. The duck was fine, it was duck. I was not impressed. It wasn't bad, but nothing special." In my opinion, the duck was quite gamey. It actually tasted stinky to me. I didn't try the chestnuts.

I had the burger. I don't eat beef more than once every 6 months or so, but I do know that Mildred's serves local, grass-fed beef (along with as many other local ingredients as they can across the whole menu). I felt the need for meat tonight and this was honestly the only reason I suggested Mildred's. It was a good burger and the fries were tasty, although oversalted.

The final meal, which I didn't photograph was the pork chop with bacon mac-n-cheese. According to the eater, "It was like they took 3 different dishes and put them together. The flavors didn't go together at all. It was so weird. The pork chop had a barbeque sauce that bordered on teriyaki. Then there was weird mac n cheese with bacon and steamed veggies with a butter sauce. It was a very strange combination of 3 completely different sauces that you wouldnt put on the same dish. It was as if the chef didn't think of how the elements of the meal would go together." I personally, didn't try this dish, so I can't add or detract from that.

I also tried someone's Pumpkin Bisque, which was quite delicious.

Overall, with 7 people eating at the same table, none of us were impressed. The price tag was quite high (around 25/person without drinks). I don't mind paying 25 dollars for a meal, and honestly don't consider it terribly much money for a great meal. It's just that no one had a great meal. Easily, the best item was the burger, which is a weak statement.

If the place didn't put themselves out there at a high end/gourmet level, I wouldn't have been so harsh in this review. They call themselves "big city food," but unfortunately, the biggest city any of these chef's has been to is Gainesville, FL.

Camellia Court Cafe

1080 SW 11th St
(inside the Harn Museum on the bottom floor)
The Camellia Court Café is open 7 days a week from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. The Café is open until 9 p.m. for Museum Nights and until 7:30 p.m. before select performances on the Phillips Center mainstage. Call 352.392.2735 for more information.

2 Thumbs up (pretty decent meal with enough menu variety in a hip, modern setting. Perfect for making a full day event of the two museums).

Price Range: a single dish ranges from 6-12 bucks.

Two of this town's wonderful treasures are the Harn Museum of Art and the Florida Museum of Natural History/Butterfly Rainforest. Especially during those hot summer months, nothing is better than spending a whole afternoon in the cool halls of both institutions. But what if we get hungry, you ask? Look no further than the downstairs floor of the newest wing of the Harn for the Camellia Court Cafe.

The food isn't the best in the world, but it's pretty decent and has just enough variety on their relatively small menu to satisfy everyone in your party. I particularly like their salads, which are very ample and chock full of good stuff.

On this particular visit, I had the Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with wild berries (craisins), nuts (peanuts), and goat cheese, served on fresh field greens. It was actually pretty darn good. The roasted butternut squash was served cold and in chunks. The dressing was a nice light vinaigrette, different than the standard one served in most other restaurants in town.

Sticking with the serene theme of the museums, eating here can be quite peaceful. It's always quiet, and even though it's pretty close to 34th street, the outdoor seating is just as peaceful. For you students, they do accept meal plan cards, which is a nice plus.

I honestly think that the museum area of campus is taking Gainesville forward in its aesthetic and style. If the restaurant and immediate surrounding area weren't as cool as they are, maybe I'd really hate this place. But for now, I can totally eat a meal here every now and then.

Dorn's Liquor and Wine Warehouse

4140 NW 16th Blvd (in the Fresh Market plaza)

Despite its many shortcomings, Gainesville does excel in some clutch areas. Take Dorn's for example, as it is one of the best high-quality wine/cheese/beer/liquor/gourmet stores in town. I would sorely miss if I moved away. Over the past 5 years, the efforts of a few enterprising individuals have made craft beer distribution pretty top notch and evenly available in this town. Dorn's assortment of beer isn't the largest, but it surely is one of the most thoughtfully selected. I honestly prefer a store that has smaller numbers but higher concentration of interesting, quality choices.

Their wine selection is also top rate and their staff is exceedingly knowledgeable about what they sell. They'll always point out a bargain and can tell you more obscure details about each bottle than you'd ever care to know.

If you're in the mood, head over to the cheese counter where they'll pair your beer or wine selection with reasonably priced artisinal cheeses from around the world. Sampling is always free, so you can pick one that is just right for your tastes.

An entire wall is devoted to gourmet goodies from high-end balsamic vinegars and olive oils to imported sweets. Don't neglect this wall, as you'll surely find something interesting for your next soiree.

As far as liquor goes, they're well stocked with anything you could ever want.

I really enjoy heading to Dorn's for whatever little indulgence my heart desires and you should too!

Is my brother smarter than a hamster? (Two revisits)

I'm sorry for the void of reviews that September left in its wake but wanted to follow up with some revisits.

Sometimes I feel like Bart in the Simpsons episode where Lisa's science project is called "Is my brother smarter than a hamster?" Particularly, I identify with the scene where she has a cupcake hooked up to electricity and Bart keeps grabbing it despite being repeatedly shocked.

It was with this sentiment that I returned to Civilization and Boca Fiesta for my 5th and 6th attempts respectively.

Civilization Revisit:

I've been told that their lunch menu is really great and far superior to the dinner offering. Being in the neighborhood and out of ideas, I decided to head back. Keep in mind, despite giving them a bad thumb rating, they're not a bad restaurant, per se. They're mostly just not good. I've never been impressed with their offerings and I've tried multiple items on their menu (meat and veg options too). Being a sucker for any Tex Mex dish with sweet potato, I went for the sweet potato and black bean burrito with avocado, rice, and other tex-mexy ingredients (i'm remembering tomatoes and a salsa verde too). It came out looking pretty good and was pressed, which is a nice touch on a burrito. It was decent, but not great. Parts of it had a bizarre unidentifiable flavor which I later attributed to the salsa verde. The portion was tremendously huge and I could have probably gotten by on just a half, but I ate the whole thing. It wasn't bad but really wasn't anything special, which totally sums up this whole restaurant.

Bottom (reconfirmed) line: Civilization is a lackluster waste of time, money, and food.

Boca Fiesta Revisit:

I swore to never go here again and never miss an opportunity to openly deride it when friends bring it up, yet I found myself at lunch here yet again. The sole reason was because I was joining some friends who were already going there and I didn't want to be rude and try to move their party on my behalf. It looked like they improved their menu a little bit and made it somewhat easier to read. They also added extra choices for their sides. I decided on fish tacos and waited an hour for them to appear.

The tacos were actually quite good and I had no complaints about them. For my sides, I got watermelon and mashed sweet potatoes. The watermelon came with a bizarre sprinkling of some flavorless breading which my eating companions joked was poison because the staff knew of my previous review. The sweet potato mash was pretty average to bland and probably the least impressive part of the meal.

Being shocked at the increase in quality of the tacos, I still wasn't wooed by the place, as it took an hour to get our food. We were a bigger party than average and after all, it does take alot of time to put beans and other pre-prepared ingredients into some tortillas and then place them onto a plate. The service staff was still borderline unsanitary and unapologetically slow/apathetic. When it came time to pay, I had to use my debit card, and after everyone else received theirs back to sign, I realized that the waiter forgot mine. I had to go to the bar and get him to hunt it down so I could leave.

Despite the pretty good fish tacos, I really hate everything about this place.