Bite the beaches

Sunday, Awwww what a perfect day for a relaxing outing with friends. Not too early. not too late. Just a beautiful afternoon sunshine indoor/outdoor dining accompanied by the perfect mimosa, the one we are always looking forward to. Not to much OJ and just the right amount of Champagne.

So, this is what we all have in mind for that great Sunday experience. Well I wish I could say that this was how my day went last week.

This weekends vote was to visit a local Wilton Manors FL restaurant known as TROPICS. The name sounds inviting enough, give you the feeling you will be surrounded by a garden environment and soft music and amazing food and beverage right ?

As I walked up to the entry I was greeted by an A frame chalk board with the brunch menu on it. Not so unusual really, sadly, this was the best part of the brunch.

Once through the door it became very clear TROPICS was not anything as the name implied.

Let’s start from here, I was a few minutes behind my brunch mates, so I the last to make it to the table. Walking through the restaurant, I found myself trying not to be to bothered by the interior of the dining room, Dark, worn out tables and chairs and I think there was some sort of carpet on the floor. Finally making it to the table, there was one step up of course I tripped stepping up due to no marking on the floor or the waiter suggesting I watch my step.

Finally seated, I noticed everyone had napkins and flatware but me. waiting a few minutes thinking our waiter would have noticed, however never did. I just reach over to another table and took a set.

Once our waiter reappeared, I was sure we would get a menu or perhaps a little presentation from our less the stellar waiter, but no such luck.

Our waiter was kind enough to say ” what do you want to drink” , Hey, its Sunday and I’m a Mimosa kind of guy, I request a blood orange mimosa. Our waiter promptly inform me they had NO such thing. Now this part was new to me as he did say ” we can make it with cranberry juice ” I said ” No thank you, just a regular one is fine” Well who knew you could make a mimosa with sunny D juice boxes ??? Something new everyday.

A few minutes of chat with the other guests it was time to head to the buffet, I’m really not sure in all my years of attending buffets and preparing them I’ve ever walked up and found such a very poorly lit table with maybe 10 chafers on it that had absolutely no labels in front of the chafers to guide you through the journey of what you would be interested in trying.

Bravely, I opened the first chafer and found, what some would call scrambled eggs ( you know the kind that come in a box and you pour them in a pan to cook them) what still fascinates me is there was something else in the chafer on the right side. Now, I asked a few of the others what this could be but no one had an answer .

On to chafer number 2, to my surprise there was something that looked like eggs benedict, What I found truly amazing is that they had each come out of a box possibly, individually wrapped, and warmed.

This was also a pass !

Bravely moving down the line to Chafer 3 I opened to find beautifully stacked Eggo’s with I think French toast on the right side. What really set the stage was the plate next to the chafer with artificial maple syrup, Beautifully sitting in a pool of syrup running off the side of the buffet. Yummmm, this really made me want to dig in and cover those Eggo’s with syrup..

Next was chafer 4 , this was not much of a surprise and somewhat standard for brunch buffets. sausage links and patties out of a box. Yawn !

So here is where it gets really exciting, Chafer 5 we had biscuits and gravy ( gravy out of a can of course ) and biscuits that sadly had passed there shelf life RIP

Another disappointment !

The grand finale was with out a doubt Chafer 6, Now remember, nothing had labels in front of the chafers so I’m only able to discuss the items that sort of looked familiar. Anyway, Chafer 6 was some sort of instant potato ( I think ) mixed with possibly ground beef ???? Now. really who could pass this up? Mystery food !

As you recall I did say 10 chafers were set up but, the other 4 were empty

A few highlights I really want to share is, when warming a chafer we use sternos to warm the water that keeps the food hot. This tends to make the lids of the chafers a little hot to the touch, so we would normally tie a napkin on the handle so the guest would not burn their hand opening. No need here everything was at room temperature,. I think this really added incredible way to really highlight how much we were valued as guests for this very interesting experience

But hey here is the bonus You got all this for just under $80 for two people !!