Los Mayas in Clearwater, FL

I stopped in Downtown Clearwater on the way to the beach for some lunch. The winner for the day was a Mexican restaurant called Los Mayas.

The meal started with a huge basket of chips and salsa. For my meal, I had the Tacos al Pastor. This consisted of four tacos filled with very flavorful pork on corn tortillas. Refried beans were served on the side as well as a bowl of salsa borracha. This salsa, or drunk sauce, was new to me. It was sort of like a type of guacamole, except it had chunks of avocado rather than mashed. The salsa had a nice kick and ended up being used on all of the tacos as well as left over tortilla chips.

I liked Los Mayas. I haven't been too happy with the past few Mexican restaurants I've visited and Los Mayas finally broke the spell of mediocre Mexican food!

Green Apple Frozen Yogurt in Clearwater Beach, FL

During a rainy visit to Clearwater Beach, we decided to get dessert from a place called Green Apple Frozen Yogurt. The name was honestly a bit perplexing, since they only had two flavors of frozen yogurt, neither of which were green apple. They had a much bigger selection of gelati, but I went in there expecting yogurt and picked the Georgia Peach. No self-serve yogurt here and each topping cost an additional $0.95 so I had my yogurt plain. Overall, it tasted okay, although it didn't exactly scream peach to me. More like an extra sweet version of the standard tart yogurt with a slight pink tint...

Pierogi Grill in Clearwater, FL

I had dinner at a restaurant called Pierogi Grill in Clearwater. As we entered the Polish restaurant, we passed the pierogi themed vehicles in the parking lot. This included a pierogi police car and a giant concrete pierogi on a trailer. I liked this place already.

Inside, it seemed like either the owners of Pierogi Grill are really into Egyptology or the restaurant was Middle Eastern themed in a former life. There were statues of Egyptian gods. The lamps over the tables were covered in hieroglyphics, and even the salt/pepper shakers on the table were shaped like pyramids. Surrounded by everything Egyptian, I ordered my Polish Sausage & Pierogi dinner. The smoked kielbasa was served on a bed of warm sauerkraut, alongside six pierogi. There was a lot to choose from in terms of pierogi flavors, but I decided to stay classic and get mine filled with farmers cheese and potato. Overall, everything was very tasty.

Just to further point out the Egyptian theme of Pierogi Grill, check out rice pyramid that came with the Chicken Schnitzel that was also ordered at our table. I still don't quite get how Polish food is related to Egypt, but I thought the whole randomness of it all was very fun...

Captains Pizza in Clearwater, FL

After a day of enjoying Clearwater Beach, it was time to get some dinner. It was decided that pizza would be an appropriate post-beach food and we were off to search for an Italian restaurant. It seemed just about every pizzeria within walking distance of the beach served small conveyor belt pizzas with really high prices, that is, until we came to Captains Pizza.

The place was kind of dingy looking, but they had real pizza ovens and had a pie that was large enough to feed five people for an affordable price.

Our cheese pie wasn't the best pizza around, but it served it's purpose for a post-beach dinner. It was quickly devoured and we were out of the restaurant in time to see the awesome sunset on the Gulf of Mexico...