February 13, 2024 Lunch - Croque Madame at Frenchie’s Dinner - Tasting Menu at Cafe Marquesa

February 13, 2024 Lunch - Croque Madame at Frenchie’s  Dinner - Tasting Menu at Cafe Marquesa

We awakened at 5:00 to get ready and drive the 40 minutes to the Tampa Airport to catch the Silver flight to Key West at 7:50, except when we arrived at the gate we discovered the flight left at 8:50, so we got up an hour early.

When we arrived in Key West we taxied to the Southernmost Point resort at around 10:30.

We dropped our bag and walked across the street to a small restaurant named Frenchie’s. All the entrees cost at least $15.00 so we each ordered a Croque Madame for $16.50 each.

. Suzette ordered a cafe au Lait and I ordered orange juice.

The Croque Madame’s were huge: two sandwich slices of thick sautéed batter coated brioche bread spread with béchamel sandwiching three or four thin slices of Black Forest ham. Each sandwich was served with a salad or a small cup of fresh fruit 

We were hungry and I ate all and Suzette ate most of her sandwich.

After lunch we took the Duval Loop free bus tour of Old Town and rode it back to the Resort.

Then we walked to the beach by way of the butterfly exhibit, a large conservatory attached to an old house near the beach.  It appears that wealthy families began building large homes in the early 1890’s.

We walked to the beach adjoining the resort and sat in the Beach Cafe where Suzette ordered a mango margarita that was terrible served in a plastic cup, which turned out to be okay because we walked back the lobby and waited until a room was ready and assigned to us. 

When we arrived at our room we noticed that it was located beside the Tranquility Pool, one of the adults only pools in the resort. So we changed into our bathing suits and went for a swim, which was very refreshing and then lay by the pool and dozed.

We then returned to our room and rested until 5:00 when we dressed for dinner, which was to put on the warmest clothing we had, and walked two blocks to the end of South Street to the Southernmost point of land in the US.

Sunset was forecast for 6:35 but by 6:00 it was apparent that the clouds would obscure any sun set so we took some terrific photos of shafts of sunlight shining through clouds and hailed a pedal rickshaw lady to drive us to Cafe Marquesa for our 7:00 dinner reservation.

Cafe Marquesa is an inn in back and a restaurant in front built into two historic houses.

The menu was pretty extensive with entree dishes that included assortments of interesting .  Even more interesting to us was the tasting menu $165.00 that offered small portion of many of the high points of the menu. 

The challenge was to create a flight of wines that went with the dishes. I think we did a really good job of matching the wines by the glass to the dishes. We first enquirers as to the order of the dishes and determined that the first three dishes would be She Crab Bisque, seared Aji tuna tartare, and Hot and chilled foie gras, so I selected a glass each of Nicolas Feuillatte Brut at $17.00 per flute, which is a champagne Pierre gave us that we enjoyed very much. Nicolas is one the large wine store chains in France and very reliable.  The champagne was full bodied with lovely small bubbles.

The free appetizer was two bites of grouper ceviche served with two small crackers. I guess that it satisfied the new tradition in French Cuisine of starting with something fermented but did do much to excite my palate, as the first dish did. Most of the dishes were served on lovely black glazed plates and bowls mottled with added color.  The first dish was She Crab Bisque, an elegant bisque, creamy tomato soup with just a hint of picante covering a small pile of fresh crab meal.  I am not sure if I can discern she crab, but the crab meat was delicious.

We scraped the bottom of the small bowl to eat the lovely soup that was halfway between a soup and a sauce.

The next course was foie gras hot and cold, served on a rectangular white porcelain platter, the hot was the best seared foie gras I have ever tasted that was hot all the way through but was firm with a bit of crunch on the edges, which I have never experienced or been able to achieve.  The cold foie gras was melt in your mouth delicious with the champagne when smeared on slices of warm bread and soft marjoram compound butter, gladly brought upon request.

We were in heaven after the first two dishes that exceeded our expectations.  We understand the Cafe has a new chef, so we were lucky to get such great food.

The next dish was a more down home dish, fried oysters dipped a batter of what tasted like rice flour on a small pile of Spanish rice served with a confited tomato wedge with a slice of pickled red onion and pickled slices and glazed with Hollandaise Sauce on a pile of Carolina red rice. The combination was delicious, especially when I combined pieces of pickle with oyster, tomato, Hollandaise, and rice. No cocktail sauce needed for this dish. We chose to split a glass of 2021 Fournier Grand Reserve Sancerre at $25.00 for the oyster dish and loved the citrus flavor of the Sancerre with the fried oyster.

The entree was a half portion of the menu entree, Grilled Tenderloin of beef Oscar, served with shaved asparagus, a small crab cake, covered with creamed celery root and a dab of Bearnaise sauce.  We loved the celery root that we had not ever had creamed, but we had trouble choosing a red wine. We tried four before I chose a glass of Justin Cabernet Sauvignon and Suzette chose a glass of A to Z Pinot noir from the Willamette Valley.

By this dish we were full and had to force ourselves to finish the incredibly tender tenderloin and crab cake in the creamy celeriac.

But that was not the end of the meal, a porcelain platter with three desserts appeared soon after took our last sip of red wine. There was a small flute with what appeared to be a milkshake made with homemade ice cream, a small wedge of creamy key lime pie, and large round beignet with a small dipping bowl filled with creme anglais in which we dipped small pieces of beignet we cut off the large round beignet. Everything was delicious.

This was one of the best meals we have eaten in years. A total splurge of $517.00 after tip.

Perhaps the most expensive meal of our life, but thankfully, one of the best.

We took a taxi back to the room and collapsed into bed.

Bon Appetit