Urban Restaurant Tour: An Ode to Ybor

Rain or shine the City Bike Tampa Urban Restaurant Tour was on tonight!

And – trust me – there was rain!

But luckily it cleared out just in time to leave me with a wet seat for the first ride.

No biggie. 😉

I had so much fun on my first Urban Restaurant Tour last month, that as soon as registration open for this month’s ‘Ode to Ybor’ edition, I jumped on it. Any excuse to explore local restaurants is a-ok in my book. 🙂

The $10 price tag and change to explore Tampa by bike helps too.

And this time I had friends! Everyone say Hi Megan and Jessica!

At the first stop (Sono Cafe) we enjoyed gelato (so sad this was the only dessert of the tour)

And mini Paninis (the prosciutto one was delish)

Once the rain cleared, we were off.  

Side note – riding my bike with clipless pedals, but no clipless shoes is weird.

Look who decided to join us on the way to stop #2. 😉

Courtney got a little lost finding the first meeting spot, but after a little phone talking she was able to met us on the road.

It was a simple two mile bike ride that brought us to our first Ybor spot: Gaspar’s Grotto

A funky, local bar that was decked out in preparation for our arrival.

The food.

Kind of weird how they served the chicken wings, chips and salsa in individual serving cups, but it worked.

The meaty marinara sauce covered bread was eh, but the chicken wing was a great mix of sweet and spciy.

Next!

Tampa Bay Brewing Company

LOVED the hummus.

Spaghetti Warehouse is such a hidden restaurant, I’m pretty sure I would NEVER have seen it if we didn’t stop right in front of it. 🙂

I loved the inside of this place. It had a great historic feel to it, especially with an old trolley resting smack dab in the middle of the dining room.

Most restaurants on the tour focus on sandwiches because it’s easy. I appreciated that the Spaghetti Warehouse went to extra step with lasagna and salad. It was good lasagna too! 🙂

I was getting full at this point and the pizza wasn’t too appealing, so I skipped it.

And focused on water instead. 🙂

The final stop was my favorite. I <3 The Bricks!

This was the ONLY stop to provide water cups. BIG BONUS points in my opinion. 😉

They win for best salsa of the night.

They also win for most creative sandwich.

Peanut Butter & Pickle?

I was too scared to try it (oddly enough it was the Jiffy Peanut Butter that scared me away more the actual pickle), but Megan couldn’t resist a bite.

Her thoughts? Not bad. 😉

The evening ended with a few door prizes.

I think I need to buy a lottery ticket – my luck is at an all time high! – for the second night in a row I won a giveaway!

A water bottle holder! Sweet!

Sorry for such a brief post. It’s after midnight and I’m ready for bed.

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Good Night!