Our 4th July Celebrations. Pt 4
Florida Guide > Owners Vacation Diary
By this time we had resigned ourselves to being inside the restaurant when the fireworks display began, but in the hope that we get seated early and have finished our meal, we arrived at the restaurant some 10 - 15 minutes before our scheduled time. The party in front of us who had not made a reservation, were quoted a 20 minute wait and 45 minutes plus for a table outside on the patio. We were promised seating within a couple of minutes so decided to ask about outside seating and just hit lucky as a table had just become available and with no wait at all, we were shown to a great location at the front of the patio, prime viewing for the fireworks scheduled to start in just over an hour.
The restaurant was very busy but it suited us to eat at a more leisurely pace as was required due to the servers being fully occupied with so many covers and despite the busy atmosphere, at no time did we feel we we feel that we being neglected or that the service was too slow.
We started with cocktails - Tango Mango Daquiris - whilst we perused the menus and the specials board. From the tapas style appetisers we chose two dishes between three of us, shrimp supreme - six large shrimps wrapped in bacon, coated with breadcrumbs, lightly fried and served with a lemon, garlic dip. Our second choice was Pollo Al Ajillo, tender pieces of boneless chicken coated in flour and topped with fresh garlic slices sautéed in olive oil and Spanish peppers , parsley and dry sherry. The Tapas was accompanied by warm Cuban bread, individual portions each wrapped in wax paper and accompanied by whipped butter.
Our party of three chose three different entrees , filet mignon Chacho, a filet cooked to your liking and served with a sauce heavy on bourbon, shallots and mushrooms. This is usually served flambéd at the table (with a special bourbon called Chacho, hence it' s name) but the overhead fans made it difficult for our server, who, after several short seconds did mange to light it for a few short seconds. This dish was accompanied by potatoes and a fresh vegetable selection of tomatoes, mushrooms and green beans.
The second choice was Filet Mignon Columbia. This filet was wrapped in thin bacon, grilled and topped with Columbia sauce which consisted of mushrooms, ham, onions, green peppers and mushrooms, the dish was accompanied by rice.
The final choice for our party was veal chop ' La Reina Isabella' , a tender veal chop dusted with toasted Cuban breadcrumbs and grilled. The chop was topped with saffron butter sauce and blue lump crabmeat and was served with rice and asparagus. This entree was definitely not for the faint hearted. The chop was enormous and covered the whole of the large dinner plate.
The meal was delicious and none of us could contemplate a dessert or even a coffee, and just as we put down our knives and forks the fireworks began.
How do you describe such an amazing display? A full twenty minutes of continual pyrotechnics , certainly equal to anything Disney may have to offer and then some! ! We were delighted with our viewing location and those who had waited patiently on the bank' s of the lake for three or more hours could surely not have been disappointed with their reward. We would recommend this spectacle to anyone who may have the good fortune to be in the area on July 4th.
The mass exodus of crowds started as soon as the fireworks had finished so we stayed at our table a little longer before weaving our way through the remaining revellers and retracing our footsteps to where we had parked our vehicle.
It soon became apparent that parking on the outskirts of town was a good move, as exiting from the main car parks resulted in nose to tail jams, but we smugly eased our car in to the line of traffic and were home within 20 mins having enjoyed a wonderful evening.
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