From the West Boca Chamber:
Free event – Debate watching party at the Backstreet Grille (a sports bar) in the little plaza at the corner of Yamato and Lakeridge. Map:
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Party starts at 7:30 pm and will run late. Food and beverages are half off. Hopefully the low-cost lubrication will smooth things over, rather than exacerbate partisan rivalries.
Category: Restaurants
New Italian Restaurant at Yamato and Jog
Boca Magazine reports that a new Italian restaurant has opened in the plaza on the northwest corner of Yamato and Jog Road – Damiano.
While we West Boca snobs don’t consider anything east of the Turnpike to be “West” Boca, we still hope to give it a try in the near future and will post a review then.
Dada: A One-of-A-Kind Dining Experience
Dada rests quietly off of the main street at 52 N. Swinton Ave, looking more like a nicely-lit home than a restaurant.
Coming closer, there are wooden tables adorning the lawn, including a wrap-around seat that encircles a tree in the yard. The porch of the home also includes seating. Dada has made its name as a home-turned-restaurant, when the original building was constructed in 1924 and renovated in 2000 to open its doors as a restaurant. The inside features different rooms with themes where guests can also sit and enjoy the character of their dining experience. There is also a lounge/bar area upon entering. The bar offers a variety of brewed beers, wines, and signature mojitos with fresh fruit.
Apart from the unique atmosphere, the food is spectacular. The ingredients are freshly prepared, and their meats and fish are all-natural, including beef that comes from grass-fed cows. If the fresh ingredients aren’t enough, the menu items themselves are. Every meal has a twist– a burger on a delicious pretzel bun, butternut squash ravioli, to the Dada Dates, an appetizer of bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese and chorizo.
For a Friday night, the average wait was about 45 minutes. This was enough time to walk around, garner an appetite, and get a call from the restaurant to say the table is ready. If planning to go in advance, definitely call to make a reservation. The staff were enthusiastic, approachable, and accommodating, immediately welcoming all who enter through the picket fence entrance. Being indecisive regarding whether to order the Butternut Squash ravioli or Caramel Spiced Chicken, the waitress offered to get me the best of both, with the ravioli and some strips of seasoned chicken. Both were absolutely delicious and very fresh, with the Butternut Squash being satisfyingly sweet and filling.
The dessert menu offers classic desserts, such as ice cream and Dulce de Leche, to delectable treats such as warm Banana Bread to Dada Smores.
Prices range from $5 appetizers to $30 seafood dishes. Most main courses, however, are situated between $10-$20.
Not only is the atmosphere great, the food is fresh and reasonably priced. Dada is definitely worth the dime.
Tempura House on Clint Moore
We had dinner tonight at Tempura House. It advertises itself as Japanese and Chinese food but it seems focused on the Japanese side.
The hibachi area has quite a few tables and was busy and noisy. There were many children and seemed a happy crowd.
At one point they created a large table out of two stations and seated a group of about 20 people. That’s a challenge for many restaurants and Tempura House handled it well.
We started with edamame, one of our favorite appetizers because it’s nutritious and our kids eat it. I’m used to it with more salt but it was fine.
Hibachi is a pseudo Japanese style – teppanyaki – that I did not see in my year in Japan. The “chef” puts on a show for the diners.
Here are a couple of short videos from the show:
And really short:
The chef prepares everyone’s food. First he does fried rice. It’s $3 extra and personally I prefer the white rice. But most people get it.
The cooking continued with a vegetable medley, lots of shrimp and some steaks. Diners pick from chicken, steak, shrimp, scallops, fish and perhaps more. The six at our table were somewhat homogenous.
It all looks good together on the plate. My steak came with a few shrimp. And I didn’t order fried rice but he made too much and gave me some anyway.
The food is served with two dipping sauces, what Japanese would call tareh. Tempura House has a ginger sauce (dark) and a mayonnaise like sauce. In the past I’ve seen other places do mustard sauce instead of the mayo. While some real Japanese cuisine uses tareh, I never saw these there.
The staff were obviously rushed and not as attentive as I would expect for the price (the chef was good though). It was very noisy – birthdays are celebrated with a gong and that seemed every ten minutes – so not a good place if you want a quiet meal. And for me personally the flavors were nothing special.
Despite my curmudgeonly attitude, the restaurant was packed with people who obviously like the food. This may be the most successful restaurant in West Boca. Since you the reader have probably never lived in Japan, the odds are you’ll like it too.
If I were picking I’d prefer Saito on Glades. It’s a little quieter and the food is more to my taste.
Long Island Bagel and Deli
Long Island Bagel & Deli is in the West Boca Square plaza north of Palmetto on the west side of 441, near the Target. Some maps incorrectly show it further south, closer to Sandalfoot.
We eat here once or twice a month.
The interior is plain but not unpleasant.
They usually have reasonably priced specials for both breakfast and lunch. It can get crowded. Today wasn’t but the parking lot was a bit.
I had the soup and half sandwich. Soup of the day was split pea and pretty good.
I also had pastrami, sacrilegiously on wheat instead of rye, with the “health salad”. It was fine but not spectacular.
Close up on the meat.
My partner had scrambled eggs with sausage and hash browns. She liked it mostly but the potatoes were a bit overcooked.
This may not sound like a rave review but Long Island Bagel is one of our favorite restaurants. It’s comfortable and reasonably priced. We find the service quite friendly as well.
Despite today being less than perfect, we highly recommend Long Island Bagel & Deli.