Dining at New & Old

As of the first day of November, I have visited 22 new restaurants of the planned 26 for the year 2018. Since I last posted about food, I have returned to many favorites but I have also added two new places to the list. The first place is called Water's Edge Cafe located in Port Canaveral. It doubles as a Bait & Tackle shop at the new boat ramp located next to Jetty Park. The old ramp was next to Grills, but they built the new cruise ship terminal in that spot, currently used by RCL including the Oasis of the Seas. The new fish ramp has had a trailer as the bait shop until this new building was constructed.

The main entrance is on the boat ramp side, but I am a regular at Port Canaveral Jetty Park, which has a fee for entering. But through the Internet, I found that I could enter the new shop/cafe via a backdoor into Jetty Park. The building divides the fence line between the park and ramp.

The Waters Edge Cafe only serves breakfast and lunch and closes at 2PM. They have a small inside dining area and an outside deck area. It was a beautiful day so I sat outside. There was no one inside.
Here is the view looking east toward Jetty Park on the deck.

This is a shot looking West toward the boat ramp.

This is a shot looking North from my seat on the outdoor deck.

I was in the mood for lunch but I want to say that the breakfast menu looks great with a wide variety and many things I like. The lunch menu was indicative of a diner (they do call themselves a cafe) with mostly comfort foods. One of these was a reuben with a choice of one side (choices were fries, garlic parm pasta, potato salad, macaroni salad, cole slaw). I choose the potato salad which was a very simple recipe but it was tasty. The reuben was good. Having another quest on my bucket list to find the best Reuben in the world, it does not compare to some I have had, but I will say it was good and had all the ingredients expected.

I give the place a 2.5 (good to great) and the extra half point was for the great deck and views of boats and wildlife. I also liked the back door to Jetty Park. I will be back but probably to try breakfast, so I will go in the morning. I pulled the breakfast menu off their FaceBook page...

Back in 1988, Hubb's Pub became Coasters, owned and operated by the late Darrell Doll (who died in 2014). In 2008, the place was taken over by Dave & Wendy Swartz, true beer lovers and a couple who enjoy having a place that others can consume unique beers and foods.

This past Tuesday, my friend Mac Monroe and I went to see what was left from Oktoberfest, a near month-long celebration at Coasters. After a few lagers at Lou's Blues, we headed over for German beers and food. As we headed to the bar, we stopped to say hi to the owners who were having dinner.
As Mac continued to talk with the family, I sat at the end of the bar and I started with a hefeweizen. Looking great...

If you have not been to Coasters and you like beers and want to try some rare finds for the USA, go to Coasters during one of the different special celebrations like German Oktoberfest or Belgium weekend. Here are the taps which are always changing...

Food wise they were running out of most things from Oktoberfest but we still got some German sausages. My sides were German spaetzle and German potato salad. But of course!

I must say that the variety of beers is wonderful, but the food is also great. And they have an outdoor beer garden (biergarten), which is pictured in Wikipedia under the beer garden entry.

On Halloween, I went golfing at Duran with Jeff Piotrowski, Al Siegel, and Al's friend Harry Deffebach. It was a beautiful day for a round, but after completing 18 holes, the restaurant at Duran was closed for a private party. Jeff suggested we head north on Stadium Parkway to a new restaurant called el Leoncito. He said it had just recently opened. The entrance...

It is a Mexican restaurant that also serves Cuban food. It is big and has many indoor dining areas, a large bar and an outside deck. We sat outside because it was so beautiful temperature-wise...

Our waiter was Bruno and he was a real joker. He says he was Mexican and I asked him how he got the name Bruno. Al, Jeff and I ordered a Dos Equis Amber draft beer and Harry ordered a Margarita. Before our drinks arrived Bruno brought us a bowl of hot chips with salsa. I was surprised how spicy the salsa was, I really liked it.

The menu is very extensive and can be found online. This is a family owned business with the original restaurant in Titusville, another in Cocoa and now this one in Viera, right in front of the Publix at Viera Blvd. They have daily specials and Wednesday's was called Manzanillo Pollo, which was recommended by Bruno. That is what I ordered as well as Jeff and Al.

The pollo was pounded thin and served with a cream sauce, bacon and a variety of spices. I found it superbly delicious. It was so good that I emailed the place for the name for this article. Our tab had it as Manz Pollo. Harry ordered a tamale which came with beans and rice. He said the tamale was okay. A second beer was ordered (there are two Xs in Dos XX)...

I give the place a 3.5 (Great to Excellent). I will be back but I wish it was a little closer to my home. It will be a good spot to hit the next time I go to the Wetlands for a photo shoot.

Two months to get four more new places...