Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
Ideally, good restaurants should provide something much more than just edible sustenance. Our favorite eateries certainly serve food we like, but we often return to the same place for a great many other reasons — the atmosphere, the people, and the comfort and sense of community they offer. We go to them to get our bellies filled of course, but we also go to feed our spirits. Scores of locals and returning tourists agree that the Green Room Café in downtown Cocoa Beach is one such restaurant.... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
Jazzy’s Mainely Lobster Each year around this time, when the weather warms up and Summer comes clad in Spring’s disguise, we here at the Resident think back on a great meal we had with family and friends beneath an umbrella outside Mainely Lobster in 2008. A few weeks back, we decided it was high time we returned to recreate that magic. We were doubly pleased with our efforts because the place is even better than we remembered. There’s never been a better time to go back yourselves... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
Skewers Tobin Bennison That “soul” is widely lamented as a missing facet in much of today’s cuisine is no secret, and concerted efforts have been made to right the wrong — usually by highlighting food that reflects a specific cultural heritage. In a broad sense, Mediterranean cuisine is the best example of this corrective approach. With its emphasis on heart-healthy preparation and colorful, fresh ingredients, food from this crucible of several disparate civilizations has... [Read more...]
The 2011 Annual Cocoa Beach Wine & Food Festival This March 12, Lori Wilson Park will be transformed once again into an international tasting village as part of the 2011 Cocoa Beach Wine & Food Festival. The Festival will gather a diverse collection of 30 of Brevard’s most renowned chefs to prepare food samples from their establishments paired with a selection of wines selected by discerning sommeliers. This number of featured restaurants is up from the 13 who participated last year,... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
Boston Beef & Seafood It’s hard to find anything on our shores comparable to the fish houses of the New England. Floridians love their seafood, but nowhere near the same degree as Bostonians do. Go to any town along the coast of Massachusetts and you’ll find places like Boston Beef & Seafood on just about every corner, establishments — both modest and grand — that specialize in the bounty of the sea. Particularly popular are clams — fresh, fried, or in chowder... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
The Beachside Café This past Christmas, over 50 regulars got together with waitstaff to throw a surprise party for Beachside Café owners Luigi and Sonja Fusco. If that doesn’t tell you how beloved this Indialantic breakfast spot is, then just try one of their excellent benedicts. There are nine varieties to choose from here, and they’re easily the most popular items their menu. There’s the Beachside (made with ham and fresh spinach); the Grouper or Mahi Benedict (with fresh spinach... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
Merritt’s Table By Tobin Bennison Merritt’s Table, the newest and most exciting addition to the local culinary scene, opened this past October in what some might say is the perfect spot for its refreshing approach to dining. It took owner Laura Farrelly and chef Chris Bolton two years of searching — from Charleston to Key West and as far west as Santa Fe, NM — to find what Laura calls “just the right place in a community of great people.” The first time the two... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
POMPANO GRILL There’s a wood carving hanging in Cocoa Beach’s Pompano Grill that says more about chef Mark Siljestrom’s philosophy than any full-length article could. It looks vaguely like a Caribbean folk art take on the archetypal cornucopia, a still-life depiction of some fruit and vegetables that, like several other accoutrements here, predates the Pompano Grill by some 20 years. When Siljestrom bought it, he’d barely begun his professional career, but he knew that one... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
Goombay’s • Tobin Bennison • This summer has seen a fair share of speculation about the status of Satellite Beach’s Goombay’s. Had it gone on extended hiatus? Had it closed for good? Suffice it to say that the Goombay’s so many knew and loved is back — and better than ever. To be honest, we can’t say enough good things about Goombay’s latest, and what will prove to be its most enduring, incarnation. Guided by proprietor Robert “Bert” Acosta... [Read more...]
Tobin Bennison
Article Category: Restaurant Review
BEACHSIDE BARBECUE You’d think that the last thing anyone would want to do in this infernal heat is stand over a hot grill flipping slabs of meat. But that’s human nature for you. We’re as willing to sweat over a fire in 98-degree weather as we are to do a few early morning backstrokes in a frozen lake in the dead of winter. Logic? We toss that out with reams of sauce-stained paper towels while decrying everyone else’s wasteful ways. After all, it’s barbecue, and Americans... [Read more...]
