[title type="h5"]Thursday, June 26, 2013.
Off-Key Seafood Dinner.[/title]
It looks like another day of heavy summer storms, so I work from the ranch. Enough rain falls that Mary Ann's strong suggestion that I cut the grass again this weekend--I just did, on both Saturday and Sunday just past--might become a necessity.
We may have found the Eat Club cruise for next year. Our travel agent Debbie Hilbert found a May 2015 sailing out of Southamption (the port of London) that first sails to Gibraltar (that takes two days), then to Valencia, Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Rapallo (a small, interesting port near Genoa, where we have never gone before), then Florence/Pisa, and ending in Rome. We will linger in Rome a few days, and perhaps also in London before the cruise. The ship is the Queen Victoria, the newest ship on the Cunard line. I like everything about the itinerary except for the eight consecutive port days, which is a little low on relaxation. Mary Ann, however, loves that aspect. We now have to figure out the fares, a byzantine undertaking.
[caption id="attachment_42882" align="alignnone" width="359"]
Dining rooms at Key Orleans.[/caption]
The Marys and I have dinner at Key Orleans in Mandeville, near Beau Chene. Our first repast there was very good, enough that I'm thinking of today's meal as fleshing out my data for a review. But the Florida/Creole seafood house is either having a bad day, or we ordered all the wrong things. Nothing about the meal is as good as what we had last time we were here, a couple of weeks ago.
We start with the nachos, whose claim of jumbo lump crabmeat is hard to credit. It's more a pile of wontons than anything. ML gets the chicken-andouille gumbo but doesn't like it. She's more pleased by the wedge salad with grilled chicken.
[caption id="attachment_42884" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Oysters and pasta.[/caption]
I order oysters and pasta for my entree. The six fried oysters are good enough, but they don't merge well with the pasta underneath, whose sauce leaves no impression at all. The final disappointment is the bread pudding, which despite being covered with sauce, I find dry.
[caption id="attachment_42885" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Bread pudding at Key Orleans.[/caption]
All this is in such sharp contrast with our last meal that I give the place a pass. I'll be back.
[title type="h5"]Key Orleans. Mandeville: 643 Lotus Dr N. (985) 778-2569.[/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris July 03, 2014 11:01 in
