Date Night in downtown St. Pete

Friday evening we ended up going to 400 Beach Seafood and Tap House...WOW, what a great choice...valet parking along 5th Avenue was full, but we found street parking in the neighborhood a block away...upon arrival, we noticed there was a HUGE list of waits(the place is HUGE by the way, and very loud inside, great bar area, a few separate rooms for banquet and group dining too...one of the hostesses advised that there were several tables outside with no wait, and we took one of those and were seated right away...it was a beautiful evening, great views of the bay and pier...the menu was excellent, lots of seafood choices, great appetizers, and over 20 beers on tap, I tried the Widmer Drifter, and we ordered Flash Fried Calamari - cooked perfectly, tender, excellent seasoning, and a great sauce for dipping; for meals I had the Ahi Tuna with Lobster Risotto - HUGE piece of Tuna, coked perfectly, and a nice dipping sauce, the Risotto had huge chunks of Lobster, in a very cheesy and delicious al dente pasta; my date had the artichoke stuffed Grouper, again another HUGE piece of moist and tender grouper, atop perfectly cooked and seasoned greens..we both shared each others meals, they were excellent, and im looking forward to my next trip back.
We then walked over to the Gelato place, and walked around the waterfront, finally grabbing a seat along the sea wall...there was a great breeze...a perfect evening.

Saturday we went up to Orlando to visit some college buddies of mine, and watch the USF/FSU game at one of my friends retsaurants, CityFish...they had $20 wing and buckets, $5 slider and fish taco specials...all very good, it was a fun atmosphere to watch the games...USF beat FSU 17-7. That evening we went and saw Juliette Lewis perform at the Social in downtown Orlando..she was very entertaining in this small venue that only holds about 200 people...it was then up to Skybar afterwards. Finally crashing at the EoInn, another palce my buddy owns, and nice historic Inn in downtown Orlando.

Tampa Guy goes to Orlando for the Weekend!

I headed up to Orlando Saturday morning with my buddy John, we had tickets for Universals Islands of Adventure and Cypress Gardens that we needed to use before the end of the year. It was a great weekend weather wise, temps around 80, blue skies. Islands of Adventure was great, but had a limited amount of rides/attractions I was interested in(Hulk Coaster, Dueling Dragons Coaster, a couple of water rides, and Spider Man). But the tix were free, so we made the most of it, and was able to finish the park within a bout 4 hours, and had an ok lunch at the Burger Digs. Leaving the park, we decided to see a movie at City Walk, great movie theaters connected to the parks, the movie "HitMan" was good, kept the adrenaline running.
Saturday evning we met up with an old college buddy of mine, who now owns 4 of some of the nicest and most happening restaurant/lounges in downtown Orlando. He was having a small party at his condo, we hung out overlooking all of downtown Orlando, it was a great evening.
Sunday, we got to Cypress Gardens, I was surprised at how much there is actually here to do, 4 small scale roller coasters, one was very decent, and a variety of lots of different types of other rides. The water ski show was ok, but they have some animal exhibits, and of course all the Gardens. There is a decent buffet where we had an early dinner there before heading back to Tampa.