Bigfire & Voodoo Donuts
We had a great server at Bigfire, he spent a lot of time chatting with us.
We started with drinks. I ordered the PB&J old fashioned (Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey, Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon, St. George Raspberry Liquer). It was super strong but I could actually taste the peanut butter and the jelly. This is one for sipping slowly, I would order it again. Our server told us he had bought the ingredients to be able to make this one at home.
Pat ordered the Rosemary Salty Dog (Wheatley Vodka, grapefruit juice, rosemary, smoked salt). Our server described this as more adventurous but I would have called it mild. I liked this one too.
My (former) roommate ordered the Lakeside Punch (St. Augustine Vodka, orange, pineapple & cranberry juices). It was sweet and good, I would order that one myself next time.
We placed 2 orders of the bread service, which came with herbed butter and orange peach preserves. The butter was just okay, but the preserves were great.
We also ordered the Bourbon Cheese Fondue and Artichoke Oven Roasted Dip as appetizers to share. Both were really good, especially the cheese fondue with the crispy cauliflower! The cauliflower and cheese were probably my favorite part of the entire meal. The cauliflower was breaded and seasoned nicely.
I couldn’t decide what to order, so I convinced Pat to share the Peaches & Cream Salad with me so I could also order an entrée. It came with grilled peaches, burrata mozzarella, peach “gel”, baby kale, apricot brown sugar granola and a citrus vinaigrette. It was a really good salad, I ended up eating some of the bread with the salad as a topping.
For my entrée, I ordered the cauliflower steak. It said it came with shishito peppers, roasted vine tomatoes, warm farro salad, and charred tomato sauce. I asked our server about the sauce because I find that cauliflower steaks can be done really well with the right sauce, or they can be super bland (just a plate of cauliflower, often undercooked). He said it came with an eggplant sauce, so I decided to give it a try.
I would not order this again. It was very bland (except the burned bits which tasted charred), and the eggplant sauce underneath was too spicy for me. The farro salad was really bland too. I ate a few bites with the tomatoes and lemon juice, but it was just okay. Our server offered to talk to the manager to remove it from our ticket since I barely touched it, but since I ate a little, I told him I’d just take it to go, but could I add some kind of sauce in the to go box? He said all they had was salad dressings, so I went with ranch. Ranch makes everything better. I’d love to see them try frying the cauliflower like the crispy cauliflower that comes with the fondue, and/or add a better sauce to go with it. A true tomato sauce (not spicy) would have been great with this dish, or some kind of creamy herb dressing.
Pat ordered the salmon, which he said was alright. He had been planning to get a steak, but had one the night before. The potatoes that came with it were really bland too.
I didn’t get a picture of my roommate's meal, I think she ordered the grilled chicken. It came with herb dumplings, which were not only bland, but we all agreed were under-cooked. I don't remember what her husband ordered.
Overall, the restaurant had a nice atmosphere and great service, but we would only go back for drinks and appetizers. I filled up on the apps anyway, so the main dishes may not be necessary.
We wrapped up dinner around 10:15pm and decided to search for dessert somewhere else. We initially had our eyes on Voodoo Donuts, but the line was really long and mobile ordering was down (the guy working the mobile order pick-up stand said it was because they had gotten behind on orders). We decided to walk over to the Chocolate Emporium. I was excited for something chocolate, but the line there was really long too, out the door, so we decided to bail.
We landed on Cold Stone Creamery, which we have near us but my roommate’s family does not, so it was a special treat for them. I was initially sold on ice cream, but as we were walking over, I saw that Voodoo was back up for mobile ordering, so I changed my mind. We both put in donut orders and then got in line at Cold Stone. The 10 year old really wanted ice cream, and he was so patient with us all through dinner, he deserved the treat.
We waited probably 15-20 minutes for the ice cream. It was 11pm by this time, so I suggested we go check on our donuts even though the app didn’t say they were ready yet. I asked the woman standing at the door and she said I should go inside to see if my order was ready. Sure enough, it was ready, they were just missing the blueberry cake donut I had ordered and wanted to know what I wanted to replace it with (I went with classic glazed with chocolate icing). I also ordered a Guava Colada and Double Chocolate (my favorites) and Vegan PB&J and Peanut.
We stood by a planter while I sampled the donuts as my dessert. We were taking some group pictures when a cell phone started ringing on a ledge near us. We were looking around and didn’t see anyone claiming the phone. It said “Wifey” was calling, so we thought we’d answer it to let the wife know where her husband’s phone was. I didn’t realize it was a FaceTime call, so she was super confused when we answered the phone (in part because I had held it up to my ear to answer at first). Thankfully her husband showed up just a moment later to claim his phone!
We had initially talked about hanging out at our friend’s hotel when we went back, but it was almost midnight by the time we made it back to our hotel via the boat, and we were all exhausted, so we said our good-byes.
