I dined this week in a kick-ass little Pinellas County community called Gulfport. It impressed me with its homey restaurants, its patriotism — expressed in flags and yellow ribbons all over town — its sleek new city hall, swell pier and marina, well-tended parks and, not least, its stretch of clean beach equipped with volleyball nets.
I'm doubly impressed now that I've found the city's buff Internet site at www.ci.gulfport.fl.us. It has a Web camera you can operate from the comfort of your personal computer to check out, remotely, the wave action at Clam Bayou or to see who's walking along Gulfport's pier. Also on the website is a complete history of the town, population 12,527, a full list of city officials (with a phone number for each), job openings, an events calendar and senior center activities.
Proudly middle- to lower-middle class, racially comfortable and diverse, split amicably between young and old, friendly, stable and no-nonsense, Gulfport reminded me of the small Midwestern town where I grew up. Among its many assets are a couple of family-owned restaurants similar to those of my childhood, where the locals gather to eat and hang out.
Habana Café has been operated for seven years by Josefa Gonzalez-Hastings, who beat out 35,000 other contestants on Sept. 27 to win a $10,000 prize in the national 2003 Southern Living Cook-Off in Nashville. She won the "signature desserts" category with an outstanding cream cheese flan. I can see why it won: It's one of the best desserts I've ever put into my mouth. More creamy and with more heft than typical flan, it was reminiscent in texture to a piece of cheesecake; however, the resemblance ended there, as it was bathed in gorgeous, rich caramel syrup that endowed the flan with its distinctive, rich taste.
The Habana Café produces some pretty outstanding other dishes as well — like a fab picadillo and an unusually accomplished Cuban sandwich. Gonzalez-Hastings literally learned to cook on the fly, banging around the world as a flight attendant. She emigrated from Cuba with her family in the 1960s, and learned from her relatives the secrets of cooking the traditional dishes of her homeland.
Inside, the cafe is kind of wild looking: Its chairs are painted vivid purple, yellow, red and blue. Upstairs is an art gallery. The day I dined there, the kitchen ran out of its signature dish, which everybody around me was eating — Cuban-style roasted pork ($10.95, served with white rice, black beans, fried plantains and Cuban bread). So I settled for my second choice, picadillo ($8.95, also with white rice, black beans, fried plantains and Cuban bread), ground beef sirloin cooked with onions, bell peppers, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, green olives and raisins. It was exemplary, a divine medley of flavors and textures, helped along by a mellow version of rich black bean soup.
Demerits: The waitress forgot the bread, the soup was only lukewarm, the Cuban coffee could have been stronger, and the plantains were not quite ripe enough to be considered perfect. Still, since you know you're going to come to the award-winning cream cheese flan ($3.95) eventually, the little service errors and kitchen foibles seem pretty minor.
Another popular restaurant in Gulfport is Mid Peninsula Seafood Market & Restaurant, which moved five years ago from its longtime Central Avenue location to a larger building at 400 49th St. S. Owned and operated by Don and Joan Leak, it features a retail seafood shop, where people can buy fresh seafood or take out cooked dinners. Adjacent to the retail shop is a restaurant; if you want to eat in, you order and pay at the counter and someone brings the food to your table.
We arrived late on a rainy Friday night. Snaking out the door was a line of people who were obviously neighborhood residents. We wanted to stay and eat, so we ordered at the counter and sat down to wait. Since everything is prepared fresh, and nothing sits around in the kitchen, it took a few minutes before our appetizers arrived. The waiter brought my cup of seafood gumbo ($2.29), which emitted a feisty tomato scent. It was loaded with vegetables and seafood, and came with crispy, salty crackers; it had a slight peppery edge to it, just enough to give it personality, but not so much as to be overpowering. Delish.
My dining companion's salad, while nothing special, was fresh and crisp and generous, with iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes, onion, purple cabbage, shredded carrot, and homemade dressing. On the menu was a good selection of eats, starting with beer garlic onion rings ($2.79), gator bites ($4.49) and conch fritters ($2.99), and continuing with entrees like salmon, grouper, chicken breast, lobster, crab, clams, oysters, scallops and conch.
He ordered a simple fried combination plate, with a grouper fillet and six large shrimp ($10.99), while I went with grilled grouper ($10.99). His entrée arrived fresh, cooked exactly right, two fat cornpups steaming alongside; it came with coleslaw and choice of fries or rice (the salad cost an additional $2.49). Mine was fine, too, except it came pan-fried instead of grilled. I ate it anyway. Washed down with cold beer, there's almost nothing better.
Walk off your lunch or dinner with a stroll along Beach Boulevard, the main drag of Gulfport. It has a number of modest businesses, such as The Bead Hut, Bragg Stained Glass Studio, the Birds Eye View Gallery, a beauty salon, and a big building still called "The Casino" that now hosts social events and dances.
Food Editor Sara Kennedy dines anonymously, and Weekly Planet pays for her meals. She can be reached at sara.kennedy@weeklyplanet.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 116.
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2003.