Friday night in St. Pete; Saturday night in Hyde Park

After work Friday, went over to a friends in the old NE neighborhood of St. Pete, we were planning to go downtown for some eats. We wanted to go to Red Mesa Cantina, but getting there around 830pm, there was over an hour wait...looked like a great scene, live music was playing outside in the courtyard, but it was almost 40 degrees out..brrrrr. So we walked a block over to ZGrille. Nice open modern space, with the kitchen in full view behind the bar. We waited less than 5 mins for a table to be cleared, another great looking scene. Friendly service, we started out with Chips with homemade Guac, Queso, and Salsa - the salsa is the pureed kind, I like mine with chunks of fresh tomatoes, this was good though, we also asked for hot salsa, and for .50 they brought a small side of hot salsa(not sure why they wouldn't just give it to you). The Marinated skirt steak and Rib Eye were our main meals, each came with smashed red potatoes, and a vege(fresh green beans, asparagus). The skirt steak was a very small portion with a pureed chimichurri sauce, not as tender as I would have liked, but it was OK. The RibEye was HUGE, very tender and juicy, flavorful, enough for two. We were pleased with the meal, for some reason our dirty plates remained on the table for quite some time. After dinner it was time to light a fire at home, we were expecting sleet in the morning!!

A cold Saturday greeted us, high temps never got over 40 degrees, and we were expecting another freeze in the evening. It was a friends of mine birthday, so about 8 of us went over to Byblos for excellent Mediterranean/Middle Eastern eats. We all met at the bar, where a very friendly bar tender kept us entertained, suggesting wines and cocktails. At 7pm there were only a few people in the place, by 730 it was getting packed. We had a private table in the bar area, called the 'Mosquito Room" because of the mosquito net above our head, a great area and highly recommended for a party of 6 or more. Food and Wines kept coming, Ive always had such great service and some of the best middle eastern foods at Byblos. By 9pm, we had the belly dancer in our area...some Turkish Coffee to wrap up the great evening, and then it was out in Hyde park for the rest of the night, first to Cork on Howard Ave, watching the rest of the Wild Card playoff games, and enjoying great company, then a walk over to Dubliner.

Sunday, being as cold as it was, I made homemade Italian Wedding Soup, wow, what a pain making over a pound and a half of little tiny meatballs from scratch. GOOD STUFF!!

Hopefully we may see the 70s by Saturday, we are on 10 days of temps below 60 in a row.
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