Restaurant News: Sweet Dewey's BBQ Opens Thursday, and more

It might seem odd that we’re starting our restaurant news with a gas station convenience store, but we’ve heard a lot of people talking about Bilotti’s Pizza in the Loggers’ Run gas station. We stopped by and took a few pictures, and may do a more complete story on it soon.

Last week we were at City Fish Market as a guest of Barry Epstein at his Tiger Bay Club group lunch. The speaker was local orthodontist Larry Kawa, who has become a minor national figure because of his lawsuit over Obamacare. He gave an excellent speech, discussing the legal issues in depth. While we see Kawa as a notably partisan Republican, the talk was not delivered in that manner and he made an effort to show why Democrats should support what he’s doing.
And the salmon salad was also very good.

We also attended the “Grand Opening” event at Gyro Room in Mission Bay. It was not what we expected. There was a large crowd and the food came out slowly. We only tried a couple small things before we left. It was festive though.


We liked the food when we were there in September, though we were concerned that it might be too pricey for the format. There are better lunch deals nearby. Still you get a lot of food for your money and it’s quality stuff.

The biggest news is the soon-to-open Sweet Dewey’s BBQ on Glades just west of Lyons. We’re told they will be open on Thursday

Chef Dwayne Hooper is a popular guy. We were invited to a “media dinner” that ended up with a large number of guests who were not media. It was a packed house overflowing not just onto the sidewalk in front, but they actually set up tables on the grassy areas in the parking lot. Hooper used to be at the Polo Club and a lot of the residents are apparently fans and came out to see his new place.

If you look closely in the photo above you can see it’s in the plaza with Bamboo Wok and Stallone’s.
We tried a number of dishes and everything was excellent. Brisket, ribs, chicken wings, cornbread, potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans, various desserts, some kind of bisque soup, etc. There was not a bad bite in the bunch.
It was too crowded though, so we’re going to go back soon for a real review. Okay, really we’re going back because we love good barbecue and this is it. Expect a positive review soon.

Last up, again thanks to Barry Epstein we were invited to Bruce’s of Great Neck in Boca Greens this morning. We’ve never reviewed Bruce’s before but we have eaten there several times, ordered their catering once, and noticed that they do well on their inspections. We tried the Babka French toast, above, and liked it very much.
One of the impressive dishes we tasted was a special turkey panini with pear slices, spinach, and a horseradish sauce that all went together extremely well:

We also tried the shrimp salad and lobster salad. The shrimp were noticeably larger than what you might typically see in this kind of dish.

Last but not least, Rachel brought us out a plate of cookies:

Disclosure: We were offered free food in relation to all the above events. We haven’t tried Bilotti’s pizza yet because that offer came after we visited. We don’t believe the free food affected our judgment or reporting in any way, but feel our readers should know about it.