Ybor City

When researching what to do in Tampa, you will most likely come across a suggestion to take a streetcar to nearby Ybor City. Sounds like a fun thing to do, so we did. The street car ride was kinda fun, and the stops are pretty convenient.

When we got off in Ybor City, I didn't really know what to make of it at first. It seemed pretty dead. What kind of place is this? We figured we'd be able to cover the whole thing in an hour and go back to the hotel! However, it began to grow on me.

While I've never been to New Orleans, I imagined that Ybor City shares some similarities with the French Quarter in its quirkiness and kind of dark nature. We later learned that we were there on what is typically a quieter night. Apparently things pick up from Wednesday to Saturday, and we were there on a Tuesday night. A lot of stores had "Sorry We're Open" signs in the window. They definitely have a sense of humor here!

There were also a lot of "Guavaween" signs. I wish I'd taken a picture of one. We heard that a long time ago, someone had set out to make Ybor City a kind of guava capital, but it didn't take, and now Ybor City pokes fun at itself by celebrating Guavaween during the Halloween season.

There were a number of interesting places to consider for dinner. Initially I was looking at a place called the Green Iguana, a bar and grill type of place. There was another place that had wood-fired pizzas that sounded interesting. We let one of my coworkers choose, and she felt like eating Greek food, so we headed for Acropolis. It turned out to be an excellent choice! I ordered the mousaka and a glass of wine. They had a pretty extensive selection of Greek wine.

Before we decided on dinner at Acropolis, we walked by a place that served crepes. We decided ahead of time that we would go and have a crepe for dessert, so we made sure not to overstuff ourselves at dinner. The crepe place ended up being a good choice too. So good that I didn't even think of taking a picture of it before we started digging in! (UPDATE! Found a picture taken by my friend...) My friend and I shared one that had Nutella, bananas, and walnuts in it, and was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

While Ybor City appeared to be dead, Acropolis was quite popular, which isn't surprising given the goodness of the food and the funness of the live Greek entertainment, complete with napkins falling from the sky and dishes breaking. There were definitely more people walking around by the time we left, around 9 p.m. The cigar shops were pretty interesting too. We got to see cigars being rolled, and the guy in the window even posed for my friend. I'll have to post that pic later when I get it from her. All in all, a worthwhile adventure.