So it’s getting a little colder down here, you know. We’ve had a couple of cold snaps already and tearing through the holiday season so you know you’re probably looking for something a little bit warmer and hardier than normal. Usually, where you know, fish and fried foods down here, but whenever it gets cold, most people want a soup or something like that.

Hey, everybody, Kyle Sasser here. This is episode 27 of, “Great Things Tampa Bay To Do.” Gonna be talking about Chief’s Creole Café. It’s an absolutely delicious Cajun restaurant in beautiful St. Petersburg Florida and definitely run by a great group of folks. I’m actually looking to interview the owner of Chief’s Creole cafe here in the next couple months. Actually, I have a bit of a backlog on the interview so we’re gonna be pumping some of those out and try mixing in some additional comments. I didn’t realize I had so many interviews here in the pipeline. But yes, so I’m gonna be doing some more park reviews and just other interesting history things, just kind of mix it up a little bit. I don’t wanna hit you all with interview after interview after interview. So stay tuned this is a… It’s a wonderful place, and it’s located south the Central Avenue, and it’s amazing. It’s been a mind-blowing dining experience every time we’ve eaten there.

So it’s getting a little colder down here you know we’ve had a couple of cold snaps already and you know, tearing through the holiday season. So you know you’re probably looking for something a little bit warmer and hardier than normal. We usually, you know, fish and fried foods down here, but whenever it gets cold, you know, most people want a soup or something like that. My wife and I we used to go to Ricky Pees all the time and Ricky Pees was a Cajun restaurant downtown St. Petersburg and then they moved up to North 4th street for a little while.

They have subsequently closed, much to our sadness. Ricky Pees is still around though. He is over at [inaudible00:02:09], Tampa, last I checked. I saw he was making those pullboys out there still. So if you are in the market for an old Ricky Pee pullboy head on over to in South Tampa. But you know over here, we had a hankering for some Creole food. So got on the Internet, looked around, and found this place called Chief’s Cajun café. They are located on South 22nd Street, particularly at 901 22nd street south. So that is actually… if you’re familiar with St. Petersburg here. So you have Central Avenue there and you know, has lots of books and all that stuff. If you know where Three Daughters Brewing is, it’s a little bit south of that and also a little south of the train depot there. But it’s in a cool place. Interior of this place is amazing. They have like the old stand up piano there, they also have some gorgeous, like wood pieces, these are…I don’t know what you’d call it like a mantle…not a mantle, mantle is way too small for what this thing is.

If you look at the pictures online, it is bananas. So yeah, the interior is absolutely gorgeous. And luckily, the food backs it up as well. So we went there and met the owner, very nice man. We’re actually working to get him on an interview on our upcoming episode. I think you will, you know, have a lot of great insight on the history of the area, as well as you know just interviewing him with, you know, his creative process on his food, and where he learned to cook, and all that stuff. But if you’re in the mood for some gumbo or jumble, this is the place to go. They gave us some samples of all of this stuff, the gumbo is just…oh man, it is so savory, just…oh, it’s amazing. The Jumbo I does have a little spice on it. Okay, actually a little more than a little spice. So if you’re thinking jumble, please make sure to try that first, otherwise you might be a little scorched.

So we went out and the…I don’t know if they do this all the time but the salad, whenever we were there, they had an apricot basil dressing. So it was almost like…I don’t know, it was delicious, it was delicious. Basically, it was like an apricot jam or jelly with bass lines. So just very, too very…like you had the sweet of the apricot and like the bite from the oil of the basil, it was great, it was great. So I got the gumbo and rapidly devoured all of that. My wife got the Etouffee, which is sort of like a crawfish or shrimp brown sauce, very delicious. Just very hearty, like something you needed a cold day, you think about something… and so good that you would stuff it up with bread. It’s amazing. To finish it off, because you know, I got that sweet tooth, we did have some bread pudding, which was interesting, it was a little outside of my normal chocolate mousse or similar, but very good, it’s very good.

It’s not overly sweet because it had a really nice finish to it and very…healthy is not the right word, but I don’t really have another word to describe it, really, compared to my normal chocolate sugar infused sweetness. It’s an amazing place. So yeah, if you’re looking for some hearty food like that Chief’s Creole cafe and that is at 901 22nd street South over here in St Petersburg.

And now, here is your fact. So if you would like to know about now picking up after yourself for the first to 40 million years that woody tree existed on earth. The wood was not biodegradable. And the reason for that was because there was no fungus that had figured out how to eat it or rot it. So for 40 million years, as you know, all manner of woody trees and vegetation just piled up, and piled up, and piled up, crazy to think about. So I hope you enjoyed the review of Chief’s Creole cafe. We’re gonna be putting the details up on the show notes so be sure to check that out on whatever device you’re used to listen to this podcast.

Also if you’re looking for your own great place in Tampa Bay, I am also a local realtor, and I work on both sides of the bay. So I’m more than able to help you find your own great place in Tampa Bay. And yeah, you can reach me at kyle@greatthingstb.com. That’s G-R-E-A-T-T-H-I-N-G-S-T-B .com. And I’d also like to invite you over to the website, greatthingstb.com. In addition to showing notes and information on how to subscribe, we also forming a community where, basically, we have forms for each section of Tampa Bay and you can also group up and make your own groups and friends and have your own conversations. So definitely trying to build communities like for each one of you to come over and at least say hello and yeah, good things.

We also have events there. We do events, we try to do one or two a month either dining out or like a canoe trip. We might be doing the… We had a lot of requests for the skydiving thing over next to top golf, so we might be doing that sooner rather than later so be sure to go over there and subscribe so you can keep up to date on that. So I’d like to thank you for listening, and if you would just take a minute and recommend this show to a friend of yours, one that you think might enjoy listening to me ramble on about local Tampa things. So yeah, definitely, I appreciate every one of my listeners and I would love for you to say hello to me either in person or electronically. It really means a lot to me, so thank you.