One of my favorite local restaurants around here was a chain restaurant called Joe's Crab Shack. I'm not a fan of crabs, but this was the only place around here I could order crawfish. Their crawfish etouffee was the bomb! Who knows what else is on the menu, because that is all I would order there.
Within the last six months, Joe's closed all of its Ohio locations. This was truly a blow to my culinary life.
Just from driving by the old Joe's location, we saw that a new restaurant was taking over the building called Key West. We are all about trying new places, so this was on our list to try once the renovations were completed and the doors were open.
Last night was finally the night that we were going to try it. The menu had a Caribbean flavor, with a lot of seafood, and a lot of jerk seasoning. The first time at a restaurant is hard, as you just don't know where to begin. Ron decided to go with the Jambalaya (good choice I might add!). There was an item on the menu that I wanted to try called The Bubba. C'mon now, with a name like that, how could it be bad? The Bubba was a pork loin dish, but it had a horseradish marmalade on it. That kind of worried me since I really do not like horseradish. (The fact that someone actually makes a marmalade out of horseradish still makes me just scratch my head.)
The waitress was really helpful. I told her I was leaning towards this dish, but was unsure about that one item. She got me a sample of the marmalade so that I could decide if it was something I would eat. I tasted it. Good thing. Ugh, I was right. I didn't like it.
Now I really have a hankering for the pork loin, so the waitress suggested I just order The Bubba but without the horseradish marmalade. Now that sounded like a winner! I told her as long as ordering it like that would not piss off the chef, I was all for it. She assured me it would be ok. Hey, you gotta be careful about these things because who wants spit in their dinner?
We were enjoying looking at all of the new sights of the restaurant and trying to remember the old Joe's layout as we were waiting for our dinner. As our meals were coming out, the manager was walking around. Who knew that anyone was as observant as this guy! I barely got a piece of my pork cut into a bite sized piece when the manager showed up at or table with a side serving of that damned horseradish marmalade! He said it looked like they forgot it when they plated my food so he brought it out to us. How can you beat service like that? I did thank him, but assured him that his staff was on the ball, as I ordered it plain.
I did have to withstand a little ribbing from the manager about leaving off an important ingredient in my dinner, but I ribbed right back that I like things done MY way!
Horseradish or not, this dish was really awesome. The pork was so good, as were the grilled veggies that came with it. I gave it a valiant effort but I couldn't finish it and had to bring some of it home with me. I wonder how pork loin is for breakfast?
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