This past Friday, we decided to check out Chopstix Cafe on 13th Street for dinner. A recent search I had done indicated that Chopstix was the hands-down favorite Asian restaurant in town. The restaurant is located right on the bank of Bivens Lake, which provides a great lakeside view from the main dining room. The "Pan Asian" menu is huge and has pretty much any Asian dish you can imagine.
We ordered chicken satay as an appetizer. We're used to chicken satay being served on skewers and often with a small flame. Chopstix's satay came in a bowl filled with small chicken chunks covered in a tasty sauce. For our main course, I ordered "The King and I" (Thai-style spicy shrimp with vegetables) and Traci went with the pepper chicken with green peppers and onions. Both dishes were nicely done and reasonably priced. For that matter, the prices on everything were lower than I had expected.
My only minor complaints was that the service, while friendly, was slow and it also felt warm and muggy at our table. I realize this was partially because we were sitting near the window and the sun was going down, but the place could also stand to crank up the A/C a bit. I'm not one to generally complain about the temperature in a restaurant. Overall, though, we had an enjoyable experience and will be back.
On Saturday evening, we decided to check out Cedar Key and ended up at Frog's Landing, a casual seafood restaurant on the water, for dinner. Service tried hard to please, but was very slow and short-handed. The food was respectable for a seafood joint. I ordered one of the specials, a soft shell crab sandwich and Traci had a burger. Frog's own "Deep Croak" pepper sauce was a nice surprise.
We're looking forward to exploring Cedar Key more in the future. My first impression of Cedar Key is that this funky, little fishing village is how Key West must have been decades ago before it was over-commercialized. Cedar Key is a mix of independent restaurants, motels/rentals and art shops.
We also had the chance to check out Wise's Drug Store downtown on University for lunch one day this past week. Now, we like nostalgic, old-time places, and I'm glad we checked Wise's out, but we probably wouldn't go back for lunch. We sat up at the counter and both ordered turkey salad sandwiches and a bag of chips. For dessert, we split an old-fashioned shake, which Gainesville.com had highlighted.
The sandwiches were small and for $4.25 each not my idea of a good deal. The shake was fine, but not outstanding. Service was friendly and we did enjoy taking in the history of the place. I believe the soda fountain portion of Wise's is only open in the late morning and during lunch time. Otherwise, I'd say this would be a good place to grab a shake in the evening. Still, I'm glad we checked Wise's out.
Bottom-line: We certainly found a new restaurant to add to our "restaurant rotation" in Chopstix Cafe. Cedar Key was a nice surprise and Frog's Landing was overall a solid experience. While Wise's was a little bit of a let-down for lunch, I'd still encourage you to check out this slice of Gainesville history.
