Datz Delicatessen: Tampa lucks out again with Datz incredibly fine food and fun

The Tampa Bay area is well known for having given birth to a host of extremely successful restaurant chains and dining concepts. You may have heard of Outback Steakhouse and Bonefish Grill. Both were started right here in the Bay area. We're lucky diners to be home to the headquarters of Carrabba's Italian Grill, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar and Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine, all owned by OSI Partners, LLC. They boast that they operate restaurants in 50 states and Outback Steakhouse restaurants in 21 countries. (Outback still has scrumptious burgers, steaks and their indescribable onion creation. I'm getting hungry now.) This is my long-winded lead-in to telling you about a new restaurant that opened just in time for this year's Super Bowl. It's Datz Delicatesson. I can never find a time of day that cars aren't blocking the entire front of the store so the wonderful, 3D sculptural sign out front will have to do. It's rather big. I'd guess these bottles are close to six feet tall and the big square slice of cheese is at least that big. My first experience was a very pleasant surprise in many ways. I had heard it had delicious deli food. Friends and family said very good. But the live music, outdoor dining, second floor balcony bar and tons of fine wines and must-try beers - both unheard of award-winning craft beers and a big selection of foreign and domestic brews - make this a do-not-miss eating/dining experience. Fun atmosphere. BIG menu of foods and drinks. The place is much bigger than it appears from the street and can be very crowded with everyone of every age trying to find a place to park on our crowded South Tampa streets but no one minds waiting patiently to get in. Any wait is worth it. Guaranteed. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. (I don't know the owners but this is a Tampa-born restaurant concept that is a sure-fire winner wherever they decide to open next.) Check out the menu. It even has a photo gallery. The menu is thick and tries to help you decide but it's hard to make a food decision here. Plus, nothing can match being there. This is not your every day deli. Datz for sure!
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I am always pleased when a fellow blogger out in our wide, wide world finds me and likes something about what I share with you everyday through my blogs. An award is recognition for the small contribution we make to the ever-growing online blog community. The World Is Flat, the book written by author Thomas Friedman, put it so well when he described how small and connected we are as co-inhabitants of this planet. The thoughts, words and photographs we post each day bring us even closer together. The award is from Bharat Khatri who lives in Jaipur, India. His blog, Unseen Rajasthan, shows us the exotic beauty of his world. I'm glad he likes my blogs and I appreciate the award very much.

Uber* Amazing Blog Award is an award given to a site that:
(*synonym to Super)

1. Inspires you
2. Makes you smile and laugh,

3. Provides amazing information

4. Is a great read

5. Has an amazing design

Any other special and unique reasons that makes this blog Uber amazing!

The rules of this award are:

1. Put the Uber award logo on your blog and post how proud you are.
2. Nominate 5 other bloggers and invite them to accept the award
3. Go to their blog and let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing Award.
4. Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

I am passing this award along to the following 5 bloggers for their amazing blogs. Congratulations!

1. Jacob - Cedar Key Daily Photo

2.Tamera - Colorado Springs Daily Photo

3.Laurent - Daily Photo in Paris

4.Snapper - Gabriola Daily Photo

5. Hilda - My Manila

I enjoy each of these blogs and I'm proud that I can make this award. Be sure to visit them.

[This award was begun by MommaWannabe, a delightful site that has a strong and "growing" number of followers.]

Is Square really dull or unfashionable? How old are you anyway?

I have always liked the look of this place. (I admit I have not yet ventured inside.) And the name, SQUARESVILLE, pretty much says it all to most every generation alive. If you were born a Boomer, it conjures up all kinds of scenes and memories in your head. If you're even older, you may remember back to trying to dress exactly like Elvis and swivel and sneer at the girls in poodle skirts as you ran a greasy comb through your pompadour. As the sixties picked up steam, the 50s knock-off group Sha-Na-Na, that performed at Woodstock, represented a more contemporary, acceptable Square music scene, attitude and dress. Now, with generation X, Y and probably zebra, Square is hip, cool and totally retro, dude. Very in, cachet and desirable. So your apartment can look just like the 1950s and mimic your grandparent's place without the scratches and dust and doileys. Squaresville is on South Tampa's popular South Howard Avenue, SoHo. It's been around quite a while and attracts a clientele of just about every age...except for some of our parent's generation who couldn't wait to unload their furniture and knickknacks from the 1950s because it was so dated (they moved to Scan design and never moved back.) On occasion there has been a really fine vintage car parked out front, a Ford Edsel or similar "cool" car of the era.

They carry all the things that you either remember from that time in American cultural history or think is representative of the period after the Korean Conflict (War) and before the Beatles invaded from England. Playboy shirts, wall clocks with Bettie Page and kidney-shaped coffee tables. Very vintage and of an era we celebrated on television from Dobie Gillis to Laverne and Shirley to the all-time classic, Happy Days. Apparently, everything we grew to associate with these TV shows and lovable characters is to be found in Squaresville. Clothes, furniture, poodle skirts and Go-Go boots. The funny thing is, the furniture you couldn't wait to have picked up and hauled away is for sale at places like this. The store attracts all sorts who hang out in SoHo. So you'll see folks on Vespas and the occasional Maserati coupe sharing the spaces out front. Open since 1998, it bills itself as Tampa Bay's Grooviest Store, and If it's out of style, it's in stock. That's really groovy, man.

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The Honest Scrap Award was given to this blog by Jacob of Creative Confections. This is a real honor and I am especially proud because it is given by a fellow blogger. Please check out Jacob’s really fine and creative blogs by clicking on the award at left (and visit Ocala Daily Photo, Cedar Key Daily Photo and The Villages Daily Photo, too) The award is bestowed upon Tampa Daily Photo because its content or design is, in the giver's opinion, brilliant. The Honest Scrap Award is for bloggers who post from their heart, who oftentimes put their heart on display as they write from the depths of their soul. In looking back at the origins of this award, I found that past recipients were all terrific bloggers and honestly gave of themselves. Every day they shared with us their special place in our larger world. I recognize and thank all who have come before me.

The Official Rules are as follows:

1. You must brag about the award.
2. You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger.
3. You must choose a minimum of six (6) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog.
5. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. [This one I will attempt to comply with at a later date.]

So here, in no particular order, are the next recipients of the Honest Scrap Award, ones I think show brilliance in content or design (or both), but above all, honesty:

1. Avignon in Photos

2. The Skoog Farm Journal

3. Charleston Daily Photo

4. Livorno Daily Photo

5. Greenwich Village Daily Photo

6. Verona Daily Photo

Congratulations to each of my fellow bloggers. I hope you will decide to participate and find other blogs worthy of the award.

How long will it last: The chalk just keeps on keeping on.

The front page of the Wednesday, November 5, 2008 issue of TBT*Tampa Bay Times, the daily that has gained a wide readership on both sides of the bay, is reproduced on the sidewalk at Hyde Park Village. The chalk art reproduction is still visible after several weeks of foot prints, weather and lots of dog paws that have crisscrossed its surface a thousand times. The artwork was created during the inaugural Chalk Walk, a public festival of drawings created in late March by about 25 individuals, families and groups. The Tampa Bay Business Committee for the Arts played host and several other companies joined together to sponsor the events for the hundreds of artists and Chalk Walkers. Some of the finished works were huge and others not so big but they all showed great imagination, design and color. Tampa's future was their theme and it was interpreted in a wide number of ways by adults and children. Tampa's skyline, mass transit systems and beautiful people were favorite elements of many of the designs. Sidewalks in front of village restaurants, shops and around the fountain of Hyde Park Village were used liberally as canvases. As the days have gone by most of the works have disappeared, but this one remains. Public chalk art by it very nature smears, smudges and literally blows away. (Think of the Florentine artists working on the touristy streets by the Ponte Vecchio.) What we need are more chalk artists, more frequently.

Hyde Park Village in South Tampa

Hyde Park Village, a shopping area in South Tampa, is part of a neighborhood of older homes within the Hyde Park Historic District. The district is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. I love the red British telephone box smack in the heart of the village along with the street sign for Snow Avenue framed by palm trees. I'm sure an early Tampa developer found great humor in naming this small, palm-lined lane, which runs down to the open bay, for the white-stuff.