Wednesday, December 17, 2003
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Wednesday, December 17, 2003 |
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An out-of-the-way surprise By MONROE ROARK Many people today, when traveling, have become accustomed to going with what they know. When it comes to dining and accomodations, that often means going with a national chain. Granted, there are some wonderful mom-and-pop places right in this area, but it sometimes takes a resident some time to seek them out. And you can get poor service or bad food anywhere, but with a familiar name you usually know what it’s going to taste like. That can be especially important overseas if you do not have a particularly adventurous palate. For instance, when I spent five days in the Philippines and one day in Hong Kong in mid-November, I sustained myself with the hotel breakfast buffet each morning and a mix of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, KFC, Pizza Hut and Outback the rest of the time. (Yes, I’m a food wimp. There, I just saved you the trouble of e-mailing.) So, it was with great delight during a more recent trip — a holiday outing to Florida — that I discovered what a pleasant surprise a relatively unknown food establishment can be, when it looks like there might be no other prospects for miles ahead. We awoke in Cocoa Beach the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving to find the temperature in the mid-40s and a strong wind blowing. We quickly decided to get a head start on the holiday traffic and come back to the Atlanta area day early. It was just after lunch time as we drove up Highway A1A through Daytona Beach looking for a restaurant that would give us good food and a good view of the ocean while we ate. It was hard to tell which of the numerous high-rises had anything like that, so we kept driving. As we ventured north of town and the area became less urban, the landscape changed. This is where the east side of A1A has nothing on it but sand and water. On the northern edge of Ormond Beach, someone in the car spotted a place called Betty’s A1A Diner, and the driver immediately pulled in. The building’s outside did not suggest either way what the inside would be like. The windows were even tinted, so you couldn’t see the dining area from the sidewalk. It could have been a tablecloth-and-china establishment or a honky tonk with a sawdust floor at that point. The five of us walked inside and immediately were pleased with the cleanliness, especially the two ladies in the group as their first stop was the restroom. If the restroom’s clean, you’re off to a great start. Then I spotted the icebox at the edge of the kitchen with the desserts in plain view through the sliding glass door. “Are those homemade?” I asked. “They sure look that way,” the others replied. We would find out soon enough. The menu claimed that everything was homemade, and we ate nothing that would suggest otherwise. From the clam chowder (the owners are native New Englanders, so they would probably know something about that dish) to my huge hamburger to the carrot cake, every dish placed in front of me probably did not need to go in the dishwasher after I cleaned them. The other four at my table ordered various items, mostly seafood, with the same result. Another thing that tipped us off as we arrived was the sight of several Florida license plates on the cars in front of the restaurant. When we got inside, we learned that this place was a favorite for many locals, who had been in the area long enough to know where other establishments were and didn’t have to come here unless they liked it. But it wasn’t just the food we had been looking for; we also got our ocean view. Sitting right by the window, we had a clear shot of the two-lane highway and the beach just beyond it, less than a hundred yards from where we sat. From there you would never know how chilly it was outside, because there was plenty of sun (hence, the tinted windows). Needless to say, our lunch gave us something to talk about for a few miles afterward, and it was a good thing; holiday traffic had us crawling through a good part of Florida and Georgia the rest of the afternoon and into the night. But we learned about a good place to get off the interstate on our next trip south. Betty’s A1A Diner is at 1900 Ocean Shore Blvd. in Ormond Beach, Fla. The phone number is 386-441-8131.
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