Swamp House Grill in Debary, FL

Swamp House Grill is located in the Highbanks Marina in Debary. The restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating which provide scenic views of the Saint Johns River flowing past. They have a varied menu, serving seafood, steaks, salads, sandwiches, and more.

I had their crab cake sandwich on one visit to the Swamp House Grill. This consisted of two crab cakes with lettuce, tomato, and tartar sauce served on baguette style bread. The crab cakes were good and I was able to detect crab in them, unlike some other crab cakes I've had elsewhere where they seem to be all filler. Homemade potato chips were served on the side.

I had the grouper ruben on another visit. The ruben was served on marbled rye bread, filled with blackened grouper, coleslaw, swiss cheese, and thousand island dressing. This was a very tasty sandwich, although sauerkraut rather than coleslaw seems to be used on most of the rubens I've had in the past. The Swamp House was very generous with the amount of fish on the sandwich as well, which is always a good thing. Fried onion frazzles came as my side.

I enjoy Swamp House Grill. The food has been good on every one of my visits. The views of the river are nice. You get to watch alligators swim by as you eat. Certain menu items at the restaurant do seem steeply overpriced for what they are, but otherwise I have few complaints about Swamp House Grill.

Bagel King in Debary, FL

Bagel King is a local chain with several locations throughout the Central Florida area. One of their smaller locations is in Debary at the intersection of 17-92 and Highbanks Road. I've been to this location a couple times now. On my first visit, I tried a cheddar bagel with cream cheese. I don't think I had ever tried a cheddar bagel anywhere before this. I've had other types of cheese on bagels, but not cheddar.

On another visit to this Bagel King, I had an everything bagel with cream cheese. This bagel seemed skimpy with the amount of seeds. There were seeds on both sides of the bagel which is always a plus, but there seemed to be less seeds compared to other Bagel King bagels that I've had in the past. Perhaps I just got a bad batch.

While I enjoyed my bagels at Bagel King, I didn't enjoy how unpleasant the employees have been in this location. They gave the impression that they really didn't want to be there and seemed angry that they had to slice my bagel. Regardless, Bagel King's bagels are definitely better than chain bagels. Then again, there aren't any of the big chains in Debary (Panera, Einsteins, or Dunkin Donuts) so Bagel King seems to have the bagel monopoly in this city!

Zorba's Restaurant & Pizzeria in Debary, FL

I ate dinner at a Greek/Italian restaurant in Debary called Zorba's. There's no connection to the Zorba's in Longwood as far as I know...

My meal started with a Greek salad. Shredded iceberg lettuce was topped with feta, ham, olives, cucumbers, green peppers, and tomatoes. This was a decent side salad, although the ham reminded me a bit of the salads from the nearby Stavro's Italian restaurants... (and after seeing the reviews on Urbanspoon, I get the feeling that Zorba's used to be a Stavro's at one time)

I had the spanakopita for my main course. This long and skinny spinach pie seemed larger than what I've been served at other Greek restaurants. While the pie was a whole lot to eat, I found it to be kind of dry, especially towards the ends. It wasn't bad, but I doubt I'd order it again based on how dry the spanakopita was...

The Greek food at Zorba's was alright, but it seemed almost everyone else in the restaurant was being served meals from the Italian half of the menu. With my dry spinach pie, perhaps Italian food is the thing to get at Zorba's...