One of the many things my sister and I have in common is our love of local food ... and our love of trying new foods ... so that drives a lot of our restaurant choices when we travel together.
We stayed in Springfield, Missouri before flying out to Florida, so my sister found the perfect place for us to have dinner ... the Civil Kitchen. We decided to start with a couple of their signature drinks. She went for the Moroccan Manhattan, which was made with espresso infused templeton rye, the big o ginger liquor, berto vermouth, cinnamon and vanilla. I had the Civil Sangria, one of their housemade cocktails on draft. It was lemongrass infused tequila, cranberry & grapefruit juices with Moscato.
Next we had soup ... she the Chicken Enchilada with a few housemade tortilla chips and me the Prime Rib & French Onion Soup. Then we shared an order of wings, which were brown sugar coated and took our waitress's recommendation to pair it with the Habanero Honey Sauce, which was a thin vinegar based sauce that paired perfectly.
We ended with Thelma's Monkey Bread which was made with cinnamon brown sugar glazed biscuits.
At 5am at the airport, we stopped at Rove Coffee where we had delicious frozen drinks (White Mocha and Chai) and a homemade Pop-Tart together with a Blueberry Yogurt Parfait ... always get the homemade Pop-Tart and share it with your sister.
We took the recommendation of the woman running the breakfast buffet at our Hotel and headed to Peg Leg Pete's for lunch ... there was a 45 minute wait, so we wandered around and found the Underwhere? Bar that was down below the restaurant. The entire bar was empty, so we bellied up to the bar and found out we could order all of the same food as upstairs (except for grilled) and there was no wait ... so that was an easy answer. The Lobster truck had not yet arrived for the day, so we went for crab and other seafood selections.
We started with the Oyster Sampler because there were 2 of each of the six kinds of specialty oysters ... one for each of us. They were all fantastic, but we decided the classic Oyster Rockafellar with lots of spinache was our favorite (we saved it for last).
Next we had the Crab Legs and another seafood sampler with four different sides. The crab was by far our favorite, but everything was fantastic and the red beans & rice were our faovirte side.
I sister even got to pick-up a live crab in the tank outside the restaurant.
By the time we headed for dinner on Sunday night finding a place was its own challenge, so when we saw there was no one sitting at the tiny Sushi Bar inside Flounder's Chowder House, we snagged to seats and enjoyed an amazing meal. Hiro San's Tuna Avocado Roll was probably one of the best we've ever had ... and the Dragon Skin Roll was also fantastic. We started with bowls of some of the richest Miso Soup I've ever had ... a big yum.
Since having clam chowder was on our list, we headed back to Flounder's Chowder House for lunch the next day ... and the Chowder did not disappoint. It was full of clams, shrimp and potatoes and the perfect amount of peppery spice and served with pillowy warm rolls for dipping.
We shared another Sushi Roll and got the Key Lime Pie (which was you can see was triple decker ... it was just okay, and we left most of it behind).
For supper, we headed to Crabs for you guessed it ... more crab ... after we ate a dozen Oysters on the half shell.
Crabwackers were $2.50 on Monday (basically a chocolate milk shake with liquor), so we had one of those too.
We gave the key lime pie another trie (not sure what's up with stacking slices of pie here), but this one was much better (even though we couldn't even get through half of it).
We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, which had the best breakfast set-up. We were grateful for different selections each day and extremely pleasant staff making sure everything was top notch.
On Wednesday, we decided to eat a big breakfast before heading to the Zoo for the morning, and then just have a snack, so we could enjoy the Tuesday Half-Price Mezze Special at Skopelos at New World. We knew we wanted to find some grilled Octopus on our trip, and it was on the menu there.
The meal started with these perfectly crisp buttery cheesy toasts that I could not get enough of.
Then we shared four of the Mezze Dishes ... and they were all fantastic (if I lived here, you'd see me there on Tuesday nights).
Blue crab moussaka, ahi tuna spring rolls, grilled octopus with gigantes (aka the biggest beans I've ever seen), and grouper cheeks with sizzled collard greens (they were so crispy good).
For lunch on Wednesday, we stayed on the island and dined at The Grand Marlin. The restaurant was on the 2nd floor with big open windows letting in the ocean breezes and overlooking all of the boaters ... beautiful place to enjoy a meal.
Our starter was a seasonal special ... a bowl full of tiny crab claws cooked in a butter wine sauce with fabulous bread to soak-up those tasty juices.
I had the Shrimp & Grits ... but didn't even think it would be loaded with Green Peppers, so I picked out the shrimp and at the grits, which were quite delicious.
Darcy had one of the biggest Poke Bowls I'd ever seen.
And for our final meal, we headed back into the mainland for supper at Dharma Blue Cafe. We tried the Chef's Special ... chicken fried oysters served on a bowl of gravy ... followed by a Soft Shell Crab Suishi Roll ... and topped off with the best white chocolate bread pudding (the best bread pudding either of us had ever had).
When we returned to Springfield, Missouri I had to try a childhood favorite to see if it still held up - the famous Springfield Cashew Chicken. When I moved to Iowa and ordered Cashew Chicken for the first time, I was very disappointed to find that it is a completely different dish outside of Missouri. We did some research to try to find the best Cashew Chicken (there are so many opinions on that topic) and settled on The Rikshaw.
The Cashew Chicken Special was $4.95 (it was $2.95 when I used to get it in high school). Other than being pretty skimpy on the cashews, it was the exact flavor I remembered.
Then on Friday for lunch, Mom joined us at a favorite restaurant in Joplin, Missouri - Instant Karma. I tried the Burrata Caprese Salad, which was quite tasty ... would have enjoyed a bit more balsamic.
As always when we travel together, there was no shortage of good eats. We tried several new-to-us dishes and really enjoyed our experience.