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By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Food CriticFor two decades, locals have known that Tangelo's in downtown St. Petersburg is the place to go for meaty sandwiches with an ample side of island spice.
ST. PETERSBURG
Tangelo's gets a lot of credit from memories longer than mine for being a pioneer in downtown St. Petersburg.
Owners Mike and Lisa Brennan stuck it out through years of barricades, torn-up streets and public money blown on every other downtown block.
This year their tables sit across from the former Florida International Museum (nee Maas Brothers), now a soaring condo-hotel tower in the making.
Yet Tangelo's is still Tangelo's, a pile of reggae colors for the eye and a feast for the tongue, and also a dadgum good sandwich shop, a place that cooks.
Cooking is more than stacking deli-thin cold cuts slices on bread or even pressing.
Bite into a turkey sandwich here and it's the real thing, juicy inch-thick chunks sliced from turkey roasted in-house. Ditto the pork sandwich, pig meat as spicy as any pulled in North Carolina or a Mexican taqueria.
That's why Tangelo's remains: food you can sink your teeth into, cooked with hard work and a gutsy flavor.
You can savor heartiness all the way through the menu, starting with the chunkiest gazpacho on either side of bay, fresh fresco and fine alfresco.
Smoky black beans and changing kettles of soup and chili can start you off or fill you up. Try red or white (bean and turkey), or a gumbo.
Don't skip fries. The sweet potato strips with cinnamon and clove are the rum punch of frites, and the plain are finger-snapping crisp. Both come with a fired-up, house-made jerk sauce.
If somehow there is not enough flavor, go for the hot sauce. Tangelo's doesn't need a cute wall of fire; it has the best one on every table: Matouk's, a yellow elixir of Scotch bonnets and vinegar from Trinidad.
Though the menu is small, Tangelo's makes smart additions and clever twists whenever and wherever the Brennans find them. Not cute-fussy fusion, just honest choices.
More important, they all tickle my hungry bone: sweet potato fries, hunky sandwiches, mango chutney, gazpacho, Matouk's, black beans, garlic mayo, half-pound burgers, fresh lemonade, pickles and cherry peppers and $5 to $6 prices. Forget raindrops on roses, these are a few of my favorite things.
Even with foods I don't like, Tangelo's wins me over. Most spiced and flavored teas are liquid cartoons, but Tangelo's cinnamon tea is strong tea and strong cinnamon. I'll never willingly order another boneless, skinless, tasteless chicken breast, unless it has the Oaxacan black mole Tangelo's imports.
The only disappointment I can remember was a daily special: a small crabcake, a little mushy and a thin slice of breaded cod, far too crisp, but a half cup of house salsa gave the beans and rice a rich taste of the hearth.
Every lunch, the tables on the sidewalk or the inside are packed with a good sample of downtown St. Petersburg.
Is the place Cuban, Jamaican, Mexican or Floribbean? No one asks any longer. Sure there's a riot of island colors and a few dingy corners, but Tangelo's is a place of character - and characters. There's towering Jerzy, smiling Dennis and Rosie and the feisty Brennans, who put spice into downtown two decades ago. And won't quit.
Chris Sherman dines anonymously and unannounced. The St. Petersburg Times pays for all expenses. A restaurant's advertising has nothing to do with selection for a review or the assessment of its quality. Sherman can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com
Tangelo's Grille
226 First Ave. N, St. Petersburg
727 894-1695
Hours: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Details: Beer, wine, credit cards. No reservations.
Prices: $3 to $6.50.