A Shameless Plug For Our Favorite Restaurant

We have found one of those "Hole-In-The-Wall" kind of places that when you go inside, you are more than pleasantly surprised by what is waiting for you. The Thai Terrace restaurant, located on North Dale Mabry in Tampa about a mile or so south of the football stadium, serves a 4-Star meal at a 2-star price. While their prices might be a tad higher than the bulk fast-food Asian restaurants of dubious quality you pass by daily on your way to and from work, it is definitely well worth the extra dollar or two to stop in and experience Thai food the way it really should be.

The store front is totally misleading, being nestled in the front section of a Howard Johnson's motel/hotel. But when you step inside, it's like you walked through a time warp.

The dining area is comprised of 36 seats, which is just enough for a cozy dining experience without feeling cramped. The hostess, an Asian woman whom we fondly call "The Dragon Lady", is typically nicely coiffed and attired in one of a large selection of several different silk gowns, the package of which seems to herald from 'the home country' itself. Due to the cozy size of the dining area, this very capable greeter is also your server, plying her skills with a mastery that leaves you wanting for nothing.

This evening, I ordered the Thailand national dish, Phad Thai, which has rice noodles, scallions, delicate bean sprouts and ground peanuts lightly dressed in a tangy peanut dressing, that does NOT in any way hint at being related to peanut butter. Something of a difficult thing to do, in our experience with Asian dining. One of the things I get a kick out of here is the cutlery. I had no idea that there are gold-colored bronze forks, knives and spoons made, let alone coming from Thailand (it is stamped on their undersides).

Luann's favorite dish is the Mongolian beef, of which she has yet to finish the generous portion brought to the table in one sitting. This really isn't an issue because we have found that whatever we take home is still great the next day after a brief visit in the microwave oven. As for libations, there are several styles of carefully chosen wines and select beers to chose from. Luann likes the chilled plum wine, of which the bouquet is fruity, yet is not sweet and overpowering.

Here are a couple of cellphone camera pictures of the inside of the establishment, with the "Dragon Lady" working hard to ensure her guests are well taken care of. As you can see, the decorating theme is treated to a liberal dose of woodwork.

Along with the decor are the fresh flowers, strategically placed throughout the dining area which contribute to the feeling that this place is semi-formal, semi-romantic, yet somehow casual. It is very difficult to pull off this kind of atmosphere without some serious consideration to balancing the effect.

We have dined here several times now, varying our choices from the menu, with not one selection being a dud. The presentation for every plate we were served is crisp and clean without being overbearing or seeming pretentious. Our favorite appetizers are the wonton soup, which is not your Chinese style of wonton soup. The base is a rich, flavorful affair with petite, handmade wontons that are spiced just so in order to lend themselves well to the very broth they are resting within.

Another soup favorite is a coconut soup called Tom Kha with your choice of beef, chicken, or seafood and for you quasi-vegetarians out there like me, a firm tofu is avaliable not only for the soups but can also be substituted for meat in the main dishes as well.

If you are concerned about the stigma of Thai food being spicey, you can order your appetizers and most of the entrees to the heat level you desire by using a heat rating of zero to five, with five being the hottest. They do say that the heat scale is one to five, but you can order most of the items off the menu with no hot spices in it at all.

The main reason for this posting is to show our friends and readers (you know who you are) this really neat gem, seemingly transplanted from Thailand, with ownership and staff that strives to provide a complete experience, rather than to simply 'plunk' a plate on the table in front of you and walk away.

We like this place so well that when Luann graduates with her degree from college soon, we're coming here to celebrate!

Address: 2055 North Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa Florida
Phone Number: (813) 877-8955

Reservations are not needed but can be made for dinner only - Website: http://www.thaiterrace.net/

02/02/12 - NOTE: Unfortunately, ownership of this restaurant has since changed hands and they chose to change the recipes and method of service. The Dragon Lady is gone and the things we ordered simply did not taste as good as before. Oh well, another business falls victim to the times...

A Little Surgery

I had a tooth crack last Saturday while I was eating corn chips (of all things) and since the fracture went up into the gumline, it had to be surgically extracted. I scheduled an appointment for this afternoon with an oral surgeon and had the procedure done. Unfortunately during the extraction, the tooth broke even more and had to be sectioned in order to be removed in 3 pieces. Even more unfortunate was that when the second piece was maneuvered back and forth to get it to loosen up, a piece of bone about half the size of the tooth broke off and came out with it. Since more than just the tooth was extracted in the procedure, it has been more painful than expected, with some localized swelling and sinus irritation too. Hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow...

The Floor For The Shed Is Done

Now that the floor is finished in the shed, it's time to focus on the concrete pad in front of it, so I can complete the restoration of the Volvo P1800. We're making progress on Frankenswede's home...

For now, I'm storing the lumber to be used for framing-in the concrete pad inside the shed to keep it straight and dry.

Monster Jam, Coming Your Way!

We spent the evening at the Monster Jam truck show and had quite a bit of fun.

It's amazing how high these trucks can jump in the air.

Our seats gave us a great view of the South side of the field...

...and Luann's camera made sure we had a great view of the North side of the field.

Being a Dodge kinda guy, I was quite pleased to see this monster truck was named "Mopar Magic". This guy did pretty well out there.

He made short work of leveling this RV too.

And then his front wheel broke off...

If you're thinking that this monster truck looks like a Cadillac Escalade, you're right and that is also this truck's name. If you look closely, you can see that this thing even has bling-bling wheels on it. The funny thing is, the driver has a huge mohawk hairdo, which must be tough to stick under a helmet.

And the man can wheeley that Cadillac like a teenager on a dirtbike...

Here's a shot of the Blue Thunder monster truck getting out of shape on his last landing.

Then he tried to jump this yellow bus and rolled over backwards, which killed his chance at winning the freestyle event.

Up next was a truck called "Taz", which was made up to look like the cartoon version of the Tazmanian devil. This guy actually won the freestyle event.

During the intermission, a pair of jump-ramps were wheeled to the center of the field.

And a set of 5 dirtbikes did some wild jumps and stunts for us.

On one of the jumps, this rider let go of his bike in midair and was supposed to grab it and get back on, but he missed and landed on his backside on the seat and bounced off. Only to land on his feet like it was supposed to happen that way (remember, click on the images to see a larger version of the photo).

After he was quickly checked out, he retreived his dirtbike from where it had landed between two of the monster trucks and started jumping again. Good to see he was ok...

Now, it is Grave Digger's turn at the freestyle event. He got some pretty good air and had a great show going, but eventually, the right-rear tire on the truck went flat and he ended up on his side.

Look at the tire, it had smashed down on the wheel due to the forces of landing on his side.

And he came to a rest, just like that. Well, Taz won the freestyle event, which still pretty neat because Katrina's truck is named Taz and has a stuffed Tazmanian Devil doll on the dashboard that has been there for over 10 years. Talk about faded...

Yeah, it's time to head home now. And as you can see, all four of us were here, and we had a great time! We can't wait for the monster trucks to be back in the area again.

Katrina (And Friends) Work At The Ren-Faire

Not only is Melissa working the Rennaissance Festival with Katrina again, but this year, Katrina's boyfriend Bradley is working there with the girls too. Good luck kids...

The Lightning Struck, But They Ended Up Missing...

Luann & Katrina went to watch a hockey game at the Ice Palace tonight and the game was going good for a while, but then they lost in sudden-death overtime...

The girls were kinda up in the nosebleed seats, but that's one of the nice things about the Ice Palace, there really isn't a bad seat in the place, no matter how high up you are.

And, if you have a decent camera, the action on the ice isn't that far away.

But then, if you have Luann's camera, you can count the change in Number 27's back pocket...

The guys worked hard, pulling out a decent lead up until the 2nd period, when the opposition began to catch up.

Even with the hockey puck catch net in the way, it is still amazing to see the goalie do a split like this...

You know, if the guys could stop getting into fights (and sent to the penalty box) like this, things could have ended much better.

You see, in Period 2 they held a commanding lead, when the fighting got out of hand, the puck handling and balanced teamwork fell apart and the Lightning were pushed into a tie-score game that was lost in a sudden-death shoot-out.

Valentine's Day - Geocaching Style

Nothing like communing with Nature on Valentine's Day with family in order to make for an enjoyable day (with a funny day twist at the end).

Here we are hunting down some more of those elusive containers in a nature preserve near Karen's place. And Kylor came out to join in the adventurous hiking too.

Yeah, it really is nice to come across scenery like this.

And finding geocaches all over the place is a bonus too.

When we were near one of the geocaches, Karen and Kylor came across a real, rough-hewn outhouse in the middle of the brush.

Ahhhhh, all the amenities of home...

You know, sometimes finding geocaches really isn't all that hard, thanks to geocachers visiting before us. As we were finding geocaches in the preserve, I was dropping foreign currency coins in the containers. One time, I handed a container I had just sereptitiously poured a small handful of coins into, to Kylor, and he was happy to see that some geocachers were trading these coins in the containers we had found. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was me until the last cache of the day. The look on his face when I told him was absolutely priceless...

Still more scenery to observe as we were hiking along.

Well, it looks like we're done with hiking after 3 hard miles of trudging through sandy horse paths loaded with 'road apples'. As we got back to the van, I realized I had locked my keys inside and were still in the ignition. Thankfully, Karen had a coat hanger and I had a pair of pliers, so after struggling a bit, I was able to fashion the needed tool to pop the lock and get us into the van (amongst jokes and comments about the setting sun and the possibility of having the van locked in the park overnight).

So, all's well that ends well and we were able to drive home within about half an hour after realizing my 'fauz pas'. This was a nice way to spend Valentine's day, a day created in order to express your thanks for having certain people in your life to spend time with.

Hope your day was just as memorable.

Happy Valentine's Day

We decided to do things a little bit different and a little bit early for Valentine's Day. A quiet tryst on the way home after work, seemed to fit the bill.

We really couldn't decide what to get for dinner, so we settled on a simple pizza. A little pomp and circumstance involved was both nice and a little fun.

An ocean view and a setting sun, candlelight and strategic placement of the van and stationwagon, made for a nice, private little grotto.

After dinner, we decided to try our hand at some night photography, experimenting with shutter, shading and timing techniques. In this shot, the sun actually had set and it was dark out, but with playing with the settings on the digital camera, we were able to get something like this.

The headlight and taillight streaks were neat too.

We still can't figure out how the lights were so 'bumpy' in this shot. Still looks kinda neat though. Remember, click on the pictures to see a larger version of them.

After a little bit of playing with photographing by candlelight, we packed everything up and headed for home. Yeah, sometimes, it is nice to do something a little different than the same-old, same-old...

Luann Had A "Pitch The Pottery" Party

While Katrina & I were at the races last Saturday (2-7-09), Luann & Karen had some fun and blew off some steam at Conni's house participating in what they called a Chaos Party. This where you have some fun breaking dishes and such after writing your frustrations on the items first.

The participants.

Here's Conni with her first attempt at creating some chaos. Nice form too.

I think I would title this one, "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting"...

Nothing like reaching for the ceiling before dropping it in the cellar.

The gallery is reduced to hushed whispers as Lyn lines up her shot...

Sandy Beach! Gutterball !!!

The visual cues seem to indicate Lyn knew that this was not quite the desired result...

But the wayward plate was finally deposited in the barrel with smashing success...

Only a few more pieces to go.

Time for a little bit of a libatious repast...

...then on to creating something out of the chaos.

This mirror looks like a great platform for a new beginning.

A little bit of tile adhesive and things are coming together.

After the glue dries, the black duct tape will be removed, then this will be something else. Looks like the girls had even more fun than usual on yet another one of their "Girls Night Out" evenings...