Butterfly Bounty

Vicky’s lovely friends Frankie and David wrangled us freebie tickets to the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. We showed up there on Wednesday, bright and early, before the arrival of the wild tourist hordes.

Although fidgety by nature, when you’re surrounded by 1,500 of those dazzling beauties, some of them will actually hold still for long enough to get a good shot. As you can imagine, I went into a clicking frenzy until the red light on my camera alerted me to the battery’s defeat.

The same kind as above, from the side

And from the front 🙂 These blue ones are very friendly, they seem to love sitting on people

All that posing and fluttering about gives them a mighty appetite:

Congregating on a (sangria-soaked?) sponge feeder

…and on a saucy banana

Butterflies aren’t the only inhabitants of the conservatory; there’s a whole flock of brightly-coloured birds keeping them company.

Including Rhett and Scarlett, who bicker loudly, and then make up, even more vociferously. When they don’t have their heads under water, that is.

A tiny, newly-hatched baby quail…aaaawwwwww!

The Key Lime Pie Reviews: Key West Cakes

This charming little cake shop on White Street is all about cupcakes and shabby chic.

And of course they do Key lime pie:

The verdict: A perfectly respectable specimen. Crumb thin and without a trace of sogginess, the filling was light with a satisfying mouth feel, albeit just a tad too tart for me to reach cakegasm. Loved the fluorescent faux lime slice perched on top, gobbled that up with gusto 🙂

My rating: 4 out of 5.

Vicky had this little guava cream tart. Very pretty, but waaaaay to sickly sweet.

Missed the other reviews? Here they are:

• Six Toed Cat
• Blue Heaven
• Southernmost Beach Café
• The Key West Key Lime Shoppe
• Key Lime Pie Factory

And if you want to know how my cake obsession started, click here. [Warning – contains hideous photographs of 70’s and 80’s fashion].

Cute Key West Houses

More domestic prettiness from the southernmost end of Florida 🙂

Which one’s your favourite?

Gosh, It’s True…Cats Are Evil!

Everybody knows that my love of cakes is only rivalled by my love of kitties. But these two I spotted a couple of days ago in Key West outside an abandoned house gave me the heebie jeebies… they certainly did not like having their picture taken!

WTF are you looking at, Lady?!

The Key Lime Pie Reviews: Key West Key Lime Shoppe

We weren’t at all hopeful, my pal Vicky and I. Lots of hype, piles of merchandise, and, most likely, an underwhelming Key lime pie experience, that’s what we expected. But I couldn’t very well not review the ostentatiously named Key West Key Lime Shoppe, could I?

Key lime dog treats? Not even Her Supreme Greediness, Princess Pugsy, seems convinced

These look all a bit sterile and generic…

People seemed to be enjoying them, so we ordered ours.

The verdict?

Much to our astonishment, this run-of-the-mill-looking slice turned out to be a winner. The thin crust delivered on crunchy crumbliness. The filling was light, almost like a mousse, but, at the same time, it had that substantial mouth feel you’d expect from a pie. Flavour and the level of tanginess were just right. The only possible improvement one might suggest (and this is a personal preference) would be a meringue topping instead of the cream.

My rating: 4.9 out of 5.

Missed the other reviews? Here they are:

• Six Toed Cat
• Blue Heaven
• Southernmost Beach Café
• Key West Cakes
• Key Lime Pie Factory

And if you want to know how my cake obsession started, click here. [Warning – contains hideous photographs of 70’s and 80’s fashion].

Sparkly Seas Of Key West

I figured you could probably all do with a break from the incessant food posts…

Shot through the hull of a catamaran

The Key Lime Pie Reviews: Southernmost Beach Café

The Southernmost Beach Café is what it says on the tin: The southernmost eatery in the US. I’d been there once before and was served a delectable lunch. So, I thought, they must concoct their own special breed of Key lime pie, right?

And yes, indeed they do!

Looks stunningly delicious, doesn’t it?

The verdict?

Well, let me hand it to you straight: It was all wrong. All of it. An Oreo cookie crust?! Nice with a plain cheese cake, I’m sure, but positively offensive with a zesty Key lime filling. The cream topping – sickly sweet. The strawberry goop on top? It completes the flavour amalgamation from hell.

My rating: This unholy melange wasn’t the absolute worst dessert I’ve ever had in my life, so I will give it 0.5 out of 5. I’m being gracious here out of appreciation of  the fabulously friendly wait staff and all the other glorious food they serve up.

If you have the chance, do go there, the setting is beautiful. Just don’t order their flippin’ aberration of a Key lime pie!

Artist weaving palm fronds on Southernmost Beach, Key West

Missed the other reviews? Here they are:

• Six Toed Cat
• Blue Heaven
• The Key West Key Lime Shoppe
• Key West Cakes
• Key Lime Pie Factory

And if you’re curious about the early days of my cake obsession, click here [Warning: contains hideous pictures of 70’s/80’s hairdos and fashion].

Lunch Outing To Geiger Key

On Tuesday, Vicky and I went to have lunch at The Fish Camp, Geiger Key on Stock island.

Our main reason for going there was to enjoy the magnificent view while munching on our food.

There was a storm brewing…

The portions are humongous

Aaaah, glorious sweet potato fries… they deserve a post of their own, really…

Mid-way through our lunch, an almighty downpour commenced. We were safely under cover, though, and it was quite warm.

Just as well Geiger Key offers water sports!

Has everybody had enough of the food posts yet??

 

The Key Lime Pie Reviews: Blue Heaven

On Monday, we went to the place where, according to my friend, they sold the best Key lime pie on the island: Blue Heaven, an open-air restaurant in Key West’s historic Bahama Village.

And here’s a prize specimen, winking at me from a shelf in the fridge:

Now, we didn’t actually stay and eat our piece of pie on the premises. Instead, we took advantage of the Blue Heaven practice of selling off pies, which didn’t quite hit all the beauty parameters, for a bargain price of US$20.

Aw, just look at it… a bit squat compared to its supermodel cousin in the fridge,  but who wouldn’t want to adopt one of those!?

They put it in a box for us and we took it home 🙂

What was the verdict?

In short, my friend was right. This KLP was top notch. I loved the meringue topping, it just works soooo much better than the sickly sweet oozings of cream, which seems to be the prevalent choice of KLP topping.

The filling was fresh, zesty and creamy, but not heavy like pottery clay, as it had been in the last one I sampled. Its only slight shortcoming was that the crust was a tad too thick in places. But considering the amazing experience in terms of taste and texture, I’m more than happy to overlook this 😉

My rating: 4.8 out of 5.

The question is: Will I find an even better one?! The mission continues…

Missed the other reviews? Here they are:

• Six Toed Cat
• Southernmost Beach Café
• The Key West Key Lime Shoppe
• Key West Cakes
• Key Lime Pie Factory

And if you want to know how my cake obsession started, click here. [Warning – contains hideous photographs of 70’s and 80’s fashion].

 

Sunday Buffet At The Westin

I’d been looking forward to this ALL YEAR: Gorging myself at the delectable buffet laid on every Sunday by The Key West Westin. And I was NOT disappointed…

This was only the first round of desserts…

That’s our waitress there on the left, who kept our bubbly topped up 🙂

Suffice to say, we spent the rest of the day in a food coma….