Frieda’s sounds wonderful! We’re here for just a short time but will definitely try it when we return in the fall. Here’s a link to candlelight south:
We haven’t been but will eventually get there. A fun night out is ordering at osprey tacos and walking the food over to the brewery next door.
Best,
Hey Gwenn, have you tried far east fusion, looks like they have Cantonese style roast duck and pork!
There are some photos on google of bbq ducks hanging a la Chinatown.
Yes, but when we went they were all out of duck. You have to order in advance. I had the char siu. It was ok, not great. Want to try the duck. Raintree had a really good roasted half duck on the bone.
Gwenn, how about 386 in the hammock? Food looks good but some negatives around decor and cleanliness.
In a word…
The place was filthy but I hear they’ve cleaned it up. The quality of the food is ok, but the owner is way too weird for me. We ate there twice. Second time I couldn’t wait to leave. If you like carrots, he serves them with everything!
Have you been to the Cellar in Daytona? It’s fantastic.
Wow, what a great menu at the cellar! Daytona is a long drive for us but sometimes we meet my family there for dinner, will def give it a try.
For better or worse, we’re headed to 386 today, will report back, good to hear they’ve cleaned up the place, lot of the reviews do mention the owner.
I’ll let my better half handle it, she’ll be charming whatever comes our way while I’ll have fingers in each ear, humming subvocally as to not hear what the guy says. If only she’d let me wear my noise cancelling headphones everywhere…
It’s not that far in Daytona. We are very close to St. Augustine and it’s worth the ride. The veal porcini is amazing. Good luck at 386 and enjoy those carrots. Yes, please tell me how it is. I trust your taste! I’ll be waiting with bated breath!!
well, that was an experience! I decided not to share any of the online reviews or your experience with my wife and let her draw her own conclusions. She has by far the better palate and is much more sensitive to service and decor issues.
we arrived with a reservation at 6pm, frank, who I guess is the waiter/owner/host/bartender, met us as we walked in and asked us to wait a couple of minutes. The bar was about half full, dining room about 3/4 full on a tues night, no one else working the front of the house 
So, after frank served a couple of apps and poured a glass of wine for someone at the bar, he led us to our table. No napkins at the table, no menus, no drink orders.
the place seemed homey, clean and welcoming and my wife declared it "cute, no sheet covering a wall and since we were early in service, no chance of dirty dishes on tables,
After a bit of a wait, frank took drink orders, I ordered a fat tire ipa, he brought a voodoo ranger. My wife ordered a glass of cab, not sure what it was, inexpensive, but correctly made and not too oaky, just fine. ten minutes later he dropped a couple of menus on the table, splashed more (complimentary) wine into my wife’s glass, and, after a fairly long wait, he took our orders.
louisiana crab cakes consisted of a single, small crab cake with roasted corn poblana succotash, green chile buerre blanc. It was completely delicious, clearly made with lump crabmeat. The raddichio salad was excellent, and as frank pointed out, not something one sees on a lot of southern menus.
after another long wait, frank brought our mains, my pork chop was big and meaty but on the edge of overcooked, I blame myself for not ordering it a little pink. my wife’s prime ribeye turned out to be a prime fillet. He offered to take it back, my wife demurred, it was cooked perfectly, I tried a bite, absolutely delicious, no doubt in our mind that it was prime grade meat. The mashed potatoes were well made and my wife loved the carrots.
after another long-ish wait, he cleared our dishes, and went through the dessert list, my wife ordered something or other and he said how about coconut cream pie. Pie was fine, clearly not baked in-house, comped because of mixup with steak.
After the meal I asked my wife for her impressions, as usual she picked up a bunch of things that I missed. She came to the conclusion that he’s buying in small quantities and, when he runs out of stuff, he just brings something else and apologizes. She’s completely convinced they ran out of ribeye and just hoped she wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t complain about it or, as it happened, accept what was served. The same thing with my beer, the same thing with the dessert. She also noticed the tables are chipped though some effort has been made to cover it up… about midway through the meal a bartender showed up, she cleared tables when people left, so we weren’t left sitting next to dirty dishes all that long.
As to Frank, I didn’t know what to expect but it turns out I’ve met a thousand franks, playing softball and basketball in Brooklyn and working on wall st. I knew what to expect, how to jolly him and when to be firm. My wife, as expected, charmed him and we all got along just fine. To be honest, it’s nice to have a little NY/NJ in Florida, including the rough edges.
I asked my wife, given the “mixups” with service, the waits between courses, the fading tables, if she’d go back and she said “in a NY minute”. From her perspective, the food was very good, maybe a bargain for what it was, we lived in Europe for a time where 3 hour meals were the norm, so the wait didn’t bother us and, in the end, we were more amused than annoyed by Frank.
best,
ps should you decide to return, the website has a 15% off code of “summertime”
Yes. It’s really weird. There are never napkins on the table. And no wine list. He just,brings over a few bottles to chose from.
Frank is totally NY/NJ. Typical Joisey! And I think your wife hit it on the head. What happens happens. We were there last at Christmas and he had a special menu. The table next to us was taking a bit too long to order so Frank told them they hadn’t made enough menues and needed theirs back!!!
Thanks for the detailed review. Maybe we will give it another shot now that it’s clean!!
it’s an odd dynamic when my wife is more willing to return to a place like that than I am and not exactly sure what I’d order, maybe the triggerfish. And to your point, the mashed potatoes and carrots are gonna get old fairly quickly. I do wonder how much longer he’ll be in business, costs must be up, portion size down…I dunno, I guess 3/4 full on a tues night is pretty good.
My wife also noticed everyone eating there seemed to be from NY
heading back to NY this week, more exploring in nov. Be well!
Enjoy your time in NY. You are in Westchester, right? FYI, I’m missing NY deli so much I just ordered some pastrami and brisket from Katz’s!! Can’t wait till it gets here!!!
Maybe we can do dinner together when you guys are back.
Gwenn
After the kids graduated college we moved back to nyc but we have a small seasonal bungalow near where we used to live in westchester. We’ll be back sometime in nov, let’s try to get together!
My brothers order from Katz ever year and rave about it! Liebman’s is on our path from nyc to westchester, so it’s must stop every summer.
I mostly miss Chinese food while we’re here, it’s even hard to find ingredients and we have an underpowered cooktop for wok cooking.
Right, I seem to remember that.
I miss good,Chinese, Bagels and NY deli.
Enjoy!!! See you in November
We had a decent meal today in flagler at the Next Door Beach Bistro while visiting my wife’s sister. She raved about her burger, my wife and I had underwhelming lobster rolls, the lobster meat was fresh and high quality but the sandwich as a whole was under-seasoned, fries were very good. Serves us right for ordering lobster rolls out of lobster roll country.
Having said that, the place is lovely, great service, fair prices and given my sil lives close by, we’ll definitely be back to try something else.
More importantly we drove through the town of Bunnel and wow, my chow radar was a ringing! A bbq truck, hot dog joint, crab house, burger joint and lots of other interesting stuff all within about a mile of each other. Definitely gonna return for a crawl with my brothers.
Best,
We love that place for lunch. My husband does oysters and carpaccio. They make a great expresso martini and we love,the service. And those French fries. Have you been to Hot Diggity in Bunnell? Hot dogs!!!
