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Banana Cafe

May 2, 2015 By Hollie in Diners Tags: cafe, Diner, key west, restaurant, review, travel 7 Comments

In Key West, T and I went to a small café/diner feel called the Banana Café. Since the Banana Cafe had a “tropical” diner vibe, I thought I would add this one to the collection of diner reviews. Plus it was one of the best restaurants that we went too while on our honeymoon.

Atmosphere: A

Unlike New Jersey, you can sit outdoors all year round at the Banana Café. The restaurant is very open and located on the Main Street (Duval Street). I really enjoyed being able to watch everyone walk by and getting fresh air.

The inside is very open with many different paintings and decorations. I like the overall décor and beach theme a lot. It is certainly different than New Jersey diners and restaurants.

Coffee: A

The coffee of Banana café was one of my favorite restaurant coffees to date (and that is saying a lot). First the whipped cream was great, the coffee was good and the cups were really unique and interesting. Clear cups are always fun to me.

Banana Cafe Coffee (1)

The sun and beach are overpowering the background

Food: A

Spoiler: The food was also some of the best restaurant food I’ve had.

The Banana has café has many different options. Since it is located in Key West, most of the food is seafood related. They had many options from the catch of the day to the diner favorites such as omelets and pancakes. I decided to order the famous “La Mer” salad and it came with shrimp, scallops and smoked salmon. It was one of the best salads I’ve had. The salad had three different types of seafood as well as goat cheese, pineapple, apples and fresh greens. As you can see they did not skimp out on goat cheese! The presentation was also lovely. The only thing I wish it had had was bread.

Cost: $$

The salad and coffee was 20 dollars. That is not the most expensive salad I’ve had but it was rather pricey. The food was worth it though.

Would I go back/Overall Thoughts:

This is one of the best restaurants I’ve been too and I wish I could go back and every weekend. I would recommend this to anyone vacationing to Key West.

Cliff notes:
Atmosphere: A
Coffee: A
Food: A
Price: $15-20

Questions for you:

Have you ever been to Key West?
Are clear coffee mugs acceptable?

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Key West

April 28, 2015 By Hollie in Personal Tags: florida, honeymoon, key west, travel 22 Comments

I guess I’ll do honeymoon posts before the Wedding…because that makes complete sense right? Since professional photos take time, I want to wait for those before posting about the wedding.

I won’t recap every single thing from the Honeymoon because that would be another 10 days of posts. For our honeymoon we decided to take a short trip to Key West followed by a 7 day cruise. Together we spent about 10 days away. We really enjoyed seeing many different places and areas.

Before boarding our cruise we decided to head down to Key West. I’ve been to Key West twice (once on another cruise and once for a swim team training trip). T had never been before!

We landed at Fort Lauderdale and drove the (close to 4 hours) south to Key West. It was a really enjoyable and pretty drive.

We didn’t have any big plans in Key West and just enjoyed that. We walked around and enjoyed various aspects of the area (from the glass bottom boat to the “Better than Sex Dessert Bar”). We are both very laid back so we felt no pressure to have everything planned to the minute. That isn’t our style at all.

The first order of business was to buy these t-shirts.

Some other activities we enjoyed:

Watching Dolphins and creatures from our glass bottom boat

We went to several restaurants including the Banana Café (diner review to come)

Our favorite restaurant was the famous dessert and drink bar “Better than Sex”. It only serves dessert and drinks. Since we both have a huge sweet tooth we had to go. Plus how can you not go to a restaurant titled Better than Sex?

We decided to order the “Cookie Nookie”. It was a cookie cake topped with chocolate and caramel sauce as well as whipped cream. It was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had.

I ordered a chocolate stout and T ordered the “Cream in my coffee”. Both drinks were really good and came with a chocolate rim. They melted chocolate and decorated the rim of the glass.

Something we also enjoyed was the different areas to run. When we first arrived to Florida, we were not used to the heat at all. It was a struggle for us to get acclimated but once we did it made for great running. I haven’t run in a sports bra in what seems like forever. My favorite run was running to one of the local beaches and back, it was a beautiful view and a gorgeous run in general. I am already wishing I was back.

We also ran to the Southern Most Point of the US. Whether you run there or not, it’s something you must visit while going to Key West.

As you can see, we had such a great time in Key West. I really enjoy the area and it’s somewhere I really enjoy vacationing too.

Questions for you:

Have you ever been to Key West?

Have you ever been to a dessert bar?

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