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In a business where chefs, menus and owners vary as much as the ingredients, food critics do go back to restaurants to monitor what has changed. Sometimes little has, which can be to the good - or not.
Not everyone was optimistic when Boulevard Bistro left the hands of Frank Chivas and his team, including chef James Shields, who brought modern cooking to several corners of benighted Pinellas.
Seminole, only rescued recently from the mid Pinellas middling food offerings, wondered if new owner Helen Garzieri, who came from Pepin in St Petersburg, would keep Boulevard (8595 Seminole Blvd., Seminole; (727) 399-1800) on a sharp, modern edge.
Stop fretting. Garzieri and chef Brian Keller, a veteran of Boulevard's original crew, have kept the bistro's menu and nightly specials up to date.
On a recent drop-in, I tucked into food that hit the same balance the Bistro has sought all along. There's casual any-hour sandwich-or-steak comfort, plus modern culinary style and thinking.
Lobster may show up in boring dinners on weekends, but often it will be in niftier tostadas.
Freshness in ingredients and cooking started as always with finger-snapping crisp lavash flatbread and creamy hummus, and went all the way through perfectly moist lemon pound cake. Big scallops were pan-seared, spice-smeared and slid between crisp tostadas; a filet was stuffed with gorgonzola and backed up with solid potato hash.
Wines were affordable, service food-sharp and the kitchen still committed to trimmings, such as mushroom slaw and ginger aioli, that are handcrafted and clever.
We can't eat this well in most top-dollar restaurants. To find care and creativity in a neighborhood spot where half the entrees are less than $15 and you get a cilantro buttermilk dressing on a $6 chicken sandwich is remarkable.
I'm glad it continues.
* * *I wasn't so lucky on a recent visit to the Marriott Waterside. It opened more than three years ago, to fanfare trumpeting the arrival of a grand hotel in downtown Tampa.
In modern times a grand hotel's big budget and professional talent can mean a showcase of modern cuisine.
It hasn't happened yet at Il Terrazzo (700 S Florida Ave., Tampa; (813) 204-6343). Marriott has become a successful setting for big public events (I've eaten well at Tastes of the Nation there) but the hotel's big-bucks signature restaurant languishes.
A handsome breadbasket of flatbread, ciabatta and crostini was as limp and wimpy as when I complained about it three years ago. I sent it back this time, thinking I had a bad batch collapsed in the Florida heat, but the new basket was just as weak.
Also unimproved was whole fish, a roasted sea bass that was dry and flavorless. It's embarrassing that half the Asian and Latin restaurants can do this trick, but an Italian-themed spot with a great water view doesn't deliver.
I also returned a salad I had enjoyed before. On this visit it was sloppily assembled and the grilled radicchio looked like it had wilted and browned in the sun.
The risotto looked as good as I found it on my last visit.
An appetizer of house-smoked duck breast was lovely and rich, and pasta bolognese sturdy stuff, but that's only one small step and a very ordinary achievement.
At that rate, culinary grandeur remains a long way off.
Tampa Bay bouillabaisse
In other restaurants, concepts, recipes and chefs continue to change and promise intriguing new tastes and directions.
NOT SO GREEK TO YOU: No more avgolemono or spanakopita at Pappas' Grillmarks. (607 N Clearwater-Largo Road, Largo; 727-584-6235).
There's still a gyro at lunch and a Greek salad, but otherwise this part of the Pappas family's restaurants has morphed completely from neighborhood Greek into Largo's first New American, adding a California chef to join the tall food and cobalt blue lights already in place. Sean Scudder, late of the other bay area, is now banging the pots.
The menu still mixes steaks and chops with Asian starters and New World pastas. Scudder's accent is strongest in side dishes, trimmings and specials like grilled amberjack with pina colada glaze, jerked yucca root pancakes and pickled mango salad.
WATER'S EDGE: Dunedin's venerable Bon Appetit entered the contemporary casual world with Cafe Alfresco by the side of the Pinellas Trail several years ago and will soon set uptown tables on its waterfront.
The Marina Grille (150 Marina Plaza, Dunedin; (727) 733-4151) opens later this month with a worldly menu of casual munchies for $10 and under.
Smoked turkey legs, oyster po' boys, curry and pastas are familiar, but get extra touches like peppered mayonnaise and peanut sauce.
Others will be new to our shores, like smoked scallops on flatbread with goat cheese and onion marmalade or a turkey sandwich with artichokes and roasted peppers on sourdough.
Food critic Chris Sherman writes about dining and restaurant news in the Nibbler. He can be reached at 727 893-8585 or by e-mail at sherman@sptimes.com.