This week, we visited a new French bakery in West Boca called Tulipe Cafe. The Cafe is located in the Boca Grove Plaza at 21073 Powerline Road. The menu offers breakfast and lunch including coffee, crepes, salads, sandwiches and pastries. We sampled a few items. First, we tried a ham and cheese sandwich on buttered bread. It was delicious! The bread had a crusty texture and the cheese was thick slices of brie. Opening trendy bakeries seem to be extremely in fashion at this present moment. If you are considering following suit then you may want to consider the financial implications of doing so. However, they can be managed if you use your money wisely. One way to do this is to ensure the bills you are paying are as low as possible. It could be worth taking a few moments to go online and check out Simply Switch business energy.
We also tried a large chocolate chip cookie and a chocolate croissant. Both were yummy. The bakery also sells gelato and a variety of cookies and cakes.
Category: Restaurants
Outback Steakhouse Closed in West Boca
We’ve heard two reports from readers that the Outback Steakhouse in Boca Greens Plaza has closed.
We checked the Outback website’s page for the West Boca location and it has disappeared. It still shows up in a Google search, suggesting that it closed recently.
The Outback on SW 18th is still open, halfway between Powerline and Military Trail.
We are surprised. The Boca Greens Outback seemed reasonably busy, though the service was not always great.
From a reader:
Restaurant Inspections for Early 2014
Prompted by a reader tip we just did a short article about our local Mission Bay Panera having to close temporarily after a complaint. An inspection found roaches. They cleaned it up and reopened the next day with zero violations, which is unusually good. Few restaurants get zero violations, as you’ll see below.
The story prompted a big response from readers so we figured we should cover restaurant inspections more consistently. Here’s our first attempt.
The worst we found in the past couple months is the Shinju Buffet over by the Turnpike entrance. In their most recent inspection they had a total of 26 violations including 10 that were called “high priority.” As you can see from the report excerpt below, several of them were “repeat violations.”
Shinju (formally licensed as David Shinju Japanese Buffet) has had four inspections in the past few weeks, all resulting from complaints.
The inspection back on January 22nd showed a whopping 63 violations including 22 deemed “high priority.”
Other restaurants generally performed well, such as the Domino’s on 441 with zero violations.
City Fish Market had only one violation in their last inspection.
Via Mizner Country Club had four violations in their late January inspection, which is still a pretty good result.
Uncle Tai’s near Town Center had three violations in a January 24th inspection. That’s good, but back in November they had 41 violations including 7 that were high priority.
The other relatively poor result was New Golden China in the plaza on the southwest corner of Palmetto Park and Powerline. They had a total of 19 violations (5 high priority) back at the end of the year. While that sounds bad, it wasn’t bad enough to get the restaurant shut down. The report indicating a follow up inspection was required, but it doesn’t look like one has been done yet.
We get our information from the Treasure Coast Palm Beaches restaurant inspection database along with the state’s official My Florida License inspection search page.
Panera Failed Inspection?
See also today’s story on West Boca restaurant inspections for early 2014.
Thanks to a reader tip, we learned that a West Boca Panera was temporarily closed due to failing an inspection. Per the state database there was an inspection, prompted by a complaint, on February 13th, and they closed the Panera in Mission Bay Plaza.
It passed inspection the next day with zero violations and reopened.
The big problem appears to have been roaches.
See also today’s story on West Boca restaurant inspections for early 2014.
While of course that’s unpleasant, we credit Panera for fixing the problem quickly and thoroughly. It’s rare to see a restaurant inspection with zero violations.
Review of Ethos: Going Greek in Coconut Creek
We love Greek food. Our two regular places in West Boca are Taso and Jimmy the Greek. There’s also It’s All Greek at Clint Moore and 441.
But now that we have Charlotte the Wonder Puppy now, we like taking her with us to lunch. So we look for places with outdoor seating.
Ethos Greek Bistro is in the Promenade at Coconut Creek. They have seating outside, including regular tables as well as lounge and high top. It’s a busy place. For lunch they do not take reservations and we did have to wait for an outside table. There’s also a lot of room inside. It’s a nice atmosphere though it might get a little noisy in the interior when crowded.
As typical with many dog-friendly places, they brought us out a small bowl of water for the puppy. She was far more interested in leaves and mulch.
Turning to the dining experience for humans, my companion had a beet salad with grilled salmon. It was good, with plenty of feta, beets and walnuts.
I had the chicken lunch plate. It normally comes with rice and potatoes, but in a low-carb moment I asked to replace those with hummus. Our server looked puzzled for a second but then said he thought they could do it, and they did. It came on a huge platter with Greek salad that was loaded with feta. The chicken pieces were moderate in size, halfway between a tender and a cutlet. With three of them on the plate, I was only able to eat one. Companion also filled up quickly and we took home some leftovers.
Being Valentine’s Day, we saved a little room to share a dessert. We decided on a chocolate/cheesecake/baklava combination. You can see it below, cut in two with the second piece in the background.
That dessert didn’t work for me. The cheesecake wasn’t that special and it didn’t click with the baklava. We’ve had their baklava in the past and it’s very good.
The service is also normally very good. There were a couple of slow moments today but that’s unusual. We like Ethos. It’s not too far out of the way for West Boca residents, and so we get there about once a month.