BEST THING I HAVEN´T EXPERIENCED YET BUT Y´ALL KEEP PROMISING ME
Fall
In Vermont, fall wasn´t just a season, it was a marketing tool. And in Philadelphia, autumn colors could also get pretty awesome. But Florida? Well, I don´t know if the palms go all golden, but I have been told that the weather will be divine, making our long, hot, very wet summer seem a distant memory. ¨Wait till September!¨ people told me in July and August. Then they´d pause and add, ¨Well, really, October.¨ Another pause. ¨Or November.¨ What I´m really dreaming about is my first warm, as opposed to white, Christmas. Santa Claus in Bermuda shorts — now that´ll be worth waiting for.
BEST SERVER FOR NEW KIDS IN TOWN
Christina Waters, Grille 29 at Channelside
I´ve been consistently impressed by the genuine friendliness of Tampa Bay waitpersons: the efficient, smiling crew at Acropolis in Ybor, the aptly named oenophile J-Love at the Wine Exchange. But Christina Waters is the server I´d send tourists to. When my partner and I told her we´d just moved to town, she was welcoming and informative without being unctuous about it (and no, she didn´t know she was talking to a journalist). She even gave us an insider tip in case we planned to return to the restaurant to watch the July 4 fireworks. The tip? Stay inside. (Falling cinders, doncha know.)
Grille 29 at Channelside, 615 Channelside Drive, Tampa, 813-221-2929.
BEST LATIN LUNCH SPOTS
La Teresita and Hugo´s
I´m partial to the pork sandwich and black beans and rice at Hugo´s. But there´s nothing like Teresita for a good, rowdy, family-squabble, friends-meeting-friends lunch-counter experience. And ya gotta get the flan.
La Teresita Restaurant, 3246 W. Columbus Drive, Tampa, 813-879-9704; Hugo´s, 931 S. Howard Ave., 813-251-2842.
BEST STUFF EVER SERVED IN A BREADBASKET
Sidebern´s
It´s often said that you can tell the quality of a restaurant from the freshness of the bread. Sidebern´s goes beyond merely fresh to inventive, beyond inventive to addictive — curry sesame flatbread, coconut lime bread, kalamata olive fig loaf, spicy harissa sticks. Sure beats those old-time baskets of melba toasts wrapped in plastic.
Sidebern´s, 2208 W. Morrison Ave., Tampa, 813-258-2233.
BEST WAY TO GET CONFUSED, ANNOYED OR STRANDED
Drive
Disney and Universal are missing out on the theme-park thrill-ride concept most suited to Florida: Highwayland. Right-turn-only lanes that come out of nowhere! The oceanic puddles of Howard Avenue! The I-275 obstacle course! I spent most of my working life walking to work. Now I get to drive everywhere. Goody.
BEST WAY TO GET HAPPY, GIDDY AND LIGHT-HEADED
Drive
I´ve lived near water, driven over water, driven by water. I´ve never been in a place where you can literally drive on water. Those sea-level stretches of causeway where there´s nothing but you and road and endless expanses of deep blue bay (and OK, about a thousand other cars) make driving pure pleasure. Add a sunset and you feel like you never want to stop. (And don´t get me started again on that Sunshine Skyway.)
BEST WAY TO SHOP
Drive
Drive-thru lattes at Indigo Coffee. Drive-thru drycleaning drop-offs at McNatt´s. Now I want more. Drive-thru department stores, drive-thru dental exams, drive-thru drivers´ licenses …
Indigo Coffee and McNatt´s Drycleaners have locations throughout the Bay area; call 813-890-9600 (Indigo) or visit www.mcnattsdrycleaners.com.
BEST WAY TO AVOID ALL THAT DRIVING
Live in St. Petersburg or Hyde Park
St. Petersburg answers my yearning for a big town where everything´s just around the corner: shops, theaters, galleries, office buildings, banks, restaurants, museums, a gym, a waterfront park, a post office — and, of course, places to live. Hyde Park fulfills the ideal on a smaller scale. As for Tampa´s downtown, well … at least there´s a trolley.
BEST PLACE TO GET TO THE HEART OF TAMPA BAY ARTS
Viva La Frida
When my partner and I had our first dinner at Viva La Frida, there weren´t too many people in the place — we´d arrived near closing time — but creative juices were flowing as freely as the restaurant´s signature sangria. There in the corner was David Jenkins, the artistic director of Jobsite Theater, with his actress wife Summer Bohnenkamp-Jenkins; I´d just seen her having a very wacky orgasm a few days before in Jobsite´s Delusions of Darkness. Our server, chatty, warm and very tall Katherine Kearney, told us about the photographic gallery she´d just opened in Ybor. A new theater group had just staged a play in the restaurant earlier in the evening; the walls were covered with artwork, Frida-inspired and otherwise; and there were flyers all around for upcoming Viva La Frida cultural events. Part restaurant, part gallery, part performance space, Viva La Frida (thanks to owner Angelica Diaz) is just what a burgeoning arts community needs — a community center.
Viva La Frida Café y Galeria, 5901 N. Florida Ave., Tampa, 813-231-9199.
BEST WAY TO GET INTO THE HEAD OF TAMPA BAY ARTISTS
Openings at USF-CAM, Tampa Museum of Art and Covivant Gallery
The elegantly mounted pairing of Janaina Tschape and Burt Barr´s mesmerizing video installations at CAM. The happy marriage of capoiera and Cuban art at Covivant. The bracingly original talents of artists like A.A. Rucci and Wendy Babcox at underCURRENT/over VIEW. And all this combined with the best people watching in town. Art openings get a bad rap — ¨Posers! Can´t see the art! Elitist crap!¨ etc., etc. — but I find them enormously encouraging. Each of these events made me successively happier that I´d come to a town where there were lots of interesting people whose idea of a good time is to gather in a room, look at art, drink a little and talk a lot.
BEST BANK ENTERTAINMENT
Wachovia
Deep in their flinty financial hearts, bankers may all yearn for the day that tellers and bank floors and anything involving human beings interacting with other human beings (instead of bank machines) will go the way of Ye Olde General Store. But meanwhile, someone in this particular Wachovia branch has decided to go all the way in the other direction. Flat screen TV — you can watch mutton-chopped Hugh Jackman in X-Men while you´re waiting to cash your check. Donuts and coffee in the waiting area. Customer service reps who actually seem to interested in serving customers. Plus: The ATM sells stamps!
Wachovia, 1500 S. Dale Mabry, Tampa, 813-276-6233, and other places throughout the Bay area. www.wachovia.com.
BEST BIG ORGAN
Tampa Theatre´s Mighty Wurlitzer
Don´t know where I was when they passed out the brochures, but I didn´t realize when I first visited the Tampa Theatre that the organ was going to disappear into the floor. Now that´s theater!
Tampa Theatre, 711 Franklin St., Tampa, 813-274-8981, www.tampatheatre.org.
BEST CRITTERS
Lizards
I´m not a fan of the giant palmetto bugs or the flying roaches, but I love the lizards. The delicate proportions, the stillness, the camouflage, the bug-eating — and the faintly unnerving feeling they produce, when you walk down a sidewalk, that the pavement is alive underfoot, as barely glimpsed creatures skitter away just on the edge of your peripheral vision.
BEST THINGS YOU JUST DON´T SEE UP NORTH
Outdoor Laundromats
This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2004.