Denny's

Denny's
1446 W. Int'l. Speedway Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL 32114
(386)258-5460
www.dennys.com

So Scott and I leave Daisy Dukes and as we are in the parking lot, Scott looks at me and asks, "You wanna go eat something?" I reply, "Did I just watch six girls go at it in a winner take all chocolate pudding battle royale? You're damn right I want to go eat!" There is no way I want this evening to end at that point. Plus, I knew if Scott and I went to get something to eat, I would come out of the evening with some great blog fodder from him. And as always, he didn't disappoint.

We jumped in the car and asked the question, "Denny's or IHOP?" My most memorable Denny's experience is when Scott and I went to Las Vegas with our buddy BK. We went out each night to party and I would always leave early to head back to the hotel. These guys are much younger than I and just couldn't do the 4:00 party thing each night. There was a Denny's along the way back to the hotel and I wore it out each night for the three nights we were there.

We chose Denny's, but in hindsight I realized that my old age is getting to me as we didn't even consider the late night staples of Waffle House or Krystal. With the terrible economy we are now dealing with, many of the area Waffle House locations have been closing down, but in true fashion, Daytona Beach has been able to hold on. I cannot tell you the last time I was in a Waffle House. If that suggestion would have come up, I definitely would have been down like a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan on a Sunday afternoon.

Now would be the time where I should share with you a little something about Scott and his stomach. He has what I would have to call a sensitive stomach. To be quite honest, I was surprised that he suggested we go get something to eat this late at night, but since we hadn't had any dinner I figured he must be hungry. When Scott and I worked together at ISC, a bunch of us used to always go out to lunch. The problem was that we could hardly find a place that Scott felt comfortable eating. I would say to Scott, "You down with us for a little Chinese?" He would say, "What the hell. I haven't had fried monkey butt in over a month. I'm in." Scott cannot just eat anything and it is funny to watch him eat junk. All through the meal all he is talking about is how upset his stomach is going to be later in the day. This was always one of the best moments of the day when Scott joined us for lunch.

We get to Denny's and as they are seating us, it dawns on me that this is the location that some dude fired about 10 shots through the window back in the spring. I know I cannot tell this to Scott as he would have been a nervous wreck. Seems the dude hadn't gotten into an argument at a party earlier in the evening and the folks he had a beef with left the party and went to Denny's. See, people know where you need to head to get it done late at night.

Our waiter comes to the table to take our drink orders and we start to review the menu. I already know what I am going to have as I get just about the same thing any time I go there. Scott, however, is trying to find something that is not going to jack him up too much. Our waiter brings our drinks back and we place our orders. Scott orders the Denny's Slamburger and I order biscuits and gravy as an appetizer and the All American Slam. Let me breakdown what this order entails.

Denny's Slamburger:
A burger topped with crispy hash browns, an egg cooked to order, then covered with cheese sauce. Also comes with an order of hash browns on the side.

Biscuits and Gravy:
Two fluffy biscuits with a bowl of creamy sausage gravy.

All American Slam:
Three scrambled eggs with Cheddar cheese, two bacon strips, two sausage links, hash browns and wheat toast.

Immediately, I am worried about Scott eating a fried egg and hash browns on a burger. He seems undaunted and is ready to take it on. My biscuits and gravy comes out first. The biscuits are fluffy and warm, but the gravy is luke warm at best and does not have that much sausage in it. Given that it is close to two in the morning, I suck it up and power my way through it. The rest of our food arrives and Scott is already thinking he is going to die. I am laughing as I watch him start to eat his burger and hash browns. My All American Slam is fine. There isn't really much you can mess up here, so I get through it with no problem. We finish our meal and are both quite stuffed. Scott cannot believe I was able to eat the biscuits and gravy along with my Slam, but there is no way I was going to waste this night.

One of the funniest things about this eating event was what happened the next morning. Scott slept in and came out of his room sometime around 9:00 or 9:20 rubbing his stomach. All he had to say to me was, "Dude!" He was feeling the late night meal, but surprisingly, I felt fine. I was actually glad we ate before coming home, but not all that happy about how much I had eaten. Overall, we had a pretty good meal and it served its purpose for two guys that had consumed a few beers.

I don't know that I will be getting back to Denny's late night anytime soon, but this visit served me well. For the visit during Biketoberfest, I have to give Denny's three Stiffy's.

Eat, drink and be merry!

Harry

Daisy Dukes Southern Saloon

Daisy Dukes Southern Saloon
2479 W. Int'l. Speedway Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL
(386)257-0920

To be honest with you, I cannot believe what I said in my last post about Daisy Dukes Southern Saloon. I either said I would never go back there, or I would never eat there again. Hopefully, it was that I would never eat there again as there was a recent opportunity and reason for me to return.

My friend Scott was in town from Chicago to attend the Dew Tour event going on in Orlando a couple of weeks ago. Since Scott used to live here and worked with me at ISC, he wanted to go out on the town to see what was going on. I had to remind him that it was Biketoberfest, so things might be a little wild. Little did we know.

My friend Katie has been telling me for a few weeks that I need to get out sometime on a Thursday night and check out "Ladies Night" at Daisy Dukes. She hadn't been, but somebody told her it is off the heezie for sheezie. Now when you take into account I am a happily married man, I haven't really had the motivation or desire to go out on a school night to check this out. However, when Scott came to town I rationalized that I owe it to my single readers, both male and female, to report on what might be of interest to them. So we loaded up and decided to see what all the fuss was about. You will be glad that I did.

Scott and I get there around 8:30 and we are meeting out buddies TK and Ronk. They are already there and having a couple of drinks. The restaurant is really crowded and sure enough, packed with a lot of nice looking ladies. We order a couple of beers and I ask the bartender what the ladies night special is and she tells me that ladies drink for free all night from 7:00 until closing. Now I see why this place is so popular on Thursday evening. In these hard economic times, women are all about the free drinks and the men are all about the women who drink them. It really was a nice mixture of girls to guys in the place. I do, however, wonder where all of these women have come from as there seemed to be a lot of new faces in the crowd from what I am used to seeing around town. My guess is there are also some Stetson students coming over from Deland for a night of fun.

We are standing there minding our own business drinking our beers when I notice a sign near the front door that would change my life. The sign reads, "Pudding Wrestling 10:00 tonight!" A quick glance at my cell phone tells me it is 9:30, so we have to stay and see what this is all about. Our original plan when we went out was that we would stop by Daisy Dukes to see what is going on and then go over to beach side and get heavily into the Biketoberfest mix. We now agree that there is no reason to go anywhere until we see what this pudding wrestling is all about.

I watched Daisy Duke's staff clear a place in the restaurant for the wrestling and bring out a large kiddie pool. They then proceed to open about 10-15 gallon cans of chocolate pudding and pour them into the pool. I am thinking to myself, "This is going to be out of control." The problem with these kinds of contests is that if you don't have a ton of money at stake, it is not easy to get a woman out of the crowd to agree to wrestling in a pool of chocolate pudding and ruining the rest of her night. They finally had to get some of the waitresses to agree to participate. By the time they get these girls all ready to go it is 11:15. I am pissed at this point and really ready to go, but Scott calms me down and we decide to stay.

Since we have been waiting for so long, we are located in what is now the front row of the wrestling matches. On this evening, I am wearing a pair of very light colored blue jeans and a t-shirt. The girls start wrestling and when the first one gets slammed to the floor, pudding splashes out of the pool and dots my clothing. Now I am covered in chocolate pudding. As the matches continue, I have to go to the restroom to wipe pudding off of my face and out of my hair. I have pudding everywhere and the place is going crazy! We watch the rest of the matches and have a pretty wild time, but am ready to go when it finally ends. This turned out to be a typical Biketoberfest evening.

As we are walking to the car, Scott says, "I'm hungry. You want to go get something to eat?" To which I answer, "Did we really just watch six nearly naked women wrestle each other in a kiddie pool of pudding? Damn right I want to get something to eat." Scott throws out IHOP or Denny's. In my mind, both of these will work at 1:00 in the morning, but I was kicking myself the next day. In true player fashion I should have called an audible and said, "Waffle House." That just goes to show you how little I am out late at night. I completely forgot about Waffle House. We pile into the car and make a last minute decision that we are going to take it to Denny's. Stayed tuned for my report on Denny's.

Since we did not eat anything at Daisy Dukes, I cannot give them a Stiffy rating, but will say all the single ladies and men should check out Thursday night at Daisy Dukes. You won't see any pudding wrestling on a regular Thursday, but you will have a great time. Also, that night I noticed that the manager is the same guy that worked down the street at the Winghouse. If he has taken over since my last visit, he may have been able to get them up-to-speed on their food. I'll have to get back in there sometime to chat with him and let him know of my earlier problems. He might just be what they need to turn things around.

Eat, drink and be merry!

Harry

Lagerheads

Lagerheads
2444 S. Oceanshore Blvd.
Flagler Beach, FL 32136
(386)693-4939

Lagerheads has been open in Flagler Beach now for less than a year. My buddy Gary had been there a couple of times to watch a football game and have something to eat and suggested I give it a try. We decided to head there and have some lunch.

On the day we visited, we had quite a crew with us. There was Gary, his wife Nada, son Vuk, Gary's father, Gary Sr., my buddy Frank's girlfriend Bratch and myself. You really don't realize how different a beach town is until you go into a restaurant during the off season. We got the restaurant and there was one other couple there and a guy sitting at the bar. It was really slow.

There is somewhat of a funny story about our visit to Lagerheads. The restaurant has taken the place of Flagler Beach's only gentleman's ballet. A couple of years ago some guy decided he was going to open up a club in Flagler Beach, but had no idea the amount of opposition he would face. The location of this building is near a number of residences and should never have been allowed to open there. The residents picketed the location on a daily basis causing most men not to want to be seen going in and they quickly closed. I tell you all this as it played a part in our lunch visit. As we were waiting for our waiter to appear, we discussed where we thought the DJ booth had been located, where the stage must have been and the location of the VIP rooms. We think we got it all figured out, but it is pure speculation on all of our parts as we never got there before it closed.

Anyway, Lagerheads is a spacious restaurant with plenty of seating and great views of the ocean across the street. They have a number of flat screens, which I would think would make it a great place to check out a game. They also have a full bar area serving beer, wine and liquor.

Our waiter showed up to take our drink orders in a timely manner, but when someone asked what was the soup of the day I had to tell him that it was chili. There is really no excuse for that on a day when the restaurant is so slow. He came right back with our drinks and we placed our orders. There was a mixture of appetizers, soup and sandwiches ordered. I ordered a cup of chili and planned to split an order of wings with Gary. We ordered 20 wings, hot and grilled. My thinking was with the restaurant being so slow that day, it would be easy for them to grill our wings.

The appetizers show up along with my cup of chili in a fair amount of time. The chili looks great as it is topped with onions and shredded Cheddar cheese accompanied by saltine crackers. Here's where I would like to ask a philosophical question. Hss anybody in the history of eating in restaurants in the state of Florida ever gotten a fresh pack of saltine crackers? No matter where I eat, I always get stale saltine crackers. It is the most amazing thing and I promise to post here when I get my first pack of fresh saltines. I get over the issue of the stale saltines and start to eat my chili only to find that it is not hot. This is a huge problem for me as I like my soup and chili so hot that you can burn your mouth if you are not careful. The problem that I have now is that our waiter is no where to be found. Eventually, he appears at the far end of the restaurant, but he is paying no attention to his tables. Finally, I get up and take my chili to him and ask if I can have it reheated. It comes back to me pretty quickly and is hot just like I like it. It should be noted that the chili was very meaty and full of flavor. I was glad I ordered it.

Our meals are delivered by our waiter and everyone is pleased except Gary and I. We had ordered our wings grilled, but they came without ever having hit the grill. Given that I had already sent my chili back earlier, I didn't want to chance asking to have the wings go back and get grilled. The wings were hot, crispy and spicy. Gary and I tried to determine the sauce that was used on the wings. I thought they were done with Texas Pete and Gary thought it was Crystal's Hot Sauce. After thinking about it a bit, I had to concur with Gary. It is too bad they didn't get grilled as the wings would have been oustanding with just a little bit of char on them. Everyone else enjoyed their meals, so overall it wasn't a bad experience.

For this visit to Lagerheads, I would have to give them three Stiffy's given my own problems with the chili and wings. My thinking is that we will probably end up there again to give them another try sometime soon.

Eat, drink and be merry!

Harry

Taco Bell

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at home watching some baseball when I saw the commercial for Taco Bell's new Black Taco. While I am not a huge fan of Tacos, I felt the need to head to the border. Keep in mind that it was after 10:00 and there is no way I should be eating this late, but as John Donne would say, "For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." I had to get after it.

Now you have to take into consideration that I have been out of college for a number of years and out of the "game" since 1999. "The game" being going out chasing women and ending up at Taco Bell when the evening is not successful. If nothing, this trip to Taco Bell taught me a valuable lesson. Stick to what you know!

It has been so long since I have been to Taco Bell that I was in a panic when it came my time to order at the drive-thru. I had no idea what I was doing and had no idea where to look on the board for key menu items. It was literally as if this was my first time at this restaurant. All I could recall in such a quick moment was the new Black Taco and the new Half-Pound burritos being promoted on television. I knew I didn't want a taco, so I quickly scanned the menu board looking for some recognizable food items. In the spur of the moment, I thought, "go big or go home." If I went big, certainly there would be something I could find that would satisfy my late night craving. My order consisted of a soft chicken taco with extra sour cream, for Julynn, a Mexi-melt, half-pound beef burrito, a burrito supreme and and order of pintos and cheese. The worker threw me off when she asked if I wanted the regular sauce on the soft taco along with the extra sour cream? I mean, I guess so. This is where my unfamiliarity with their menu kills me. Who knows what is supposed to be on this taco?

I get home and back to my game as the spread is laid out on the table. My first thought is that this is a lot of food to be eating so late and how much it is going to kill me in the morning. But once I started getting into it, I quickly realized how much I miss this place. The food was still good and hot once I got back home and as tasty as remembered. Still my thoughts were that my stomach was going to pay the price for eating so much so late in the evening.

Surprisingly, I felt great the next morning. I have to give it to the folks at Taco Bell for their genius of creating "Fourth Meal." That is a great concept and it surely saved me that night. So if you are out late and feel the need to get something in your stomach I would have to recommend some Taco Bell to cure what ails you.

For my most recent visit to Taco Bell, I have to give them three Stiffy's.

Eat, drink and be merry!

Harry