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By CHRIS SHERMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 22, 2001
FAT, FREE TUESDAY
IHOP observes Mardi Gras with a free stack of three buttermilk pancakes from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday in a statewide pancake benefit for Children's Home Society of Florida. Pancakes are free; diners may make donations.
Treasure Island fixture Cadillac Jack's aims for new heights. Owner William Edwards plans to build a 5-story office building at 119th Avenue and Gulf Boulevard with a new Jack's on top, an upscale restaurant and nightspot with a view.
CK's Rooftop at the Tampa Airport Marriott (813-878-6500) is rotating again after massive renovation. There's now a vast raw bar and a menu with big cuts of Black Angus beef and other uptown entrees. Dinner prices run $17.95 to $42.50.
Now dark: Palm Harbor and north Tampa branches of Semolina International Pasta, Bombay Bicycle Club in Clearwater and St. Petersburg's Firehouse Bar & Grille.
Tampa's Tex-Mex Cantina went to the auction block earlier this week.
Black napkin. Choice of napery is a new wrinkle in veddy fancy service encountered at white-tablecloth joints in Sarasota and Orlando. "Since you're wearing dark clothes," hosts say, they remove white cotton napkins from the table and substitute black. (No lint problem with white polyesters -- or paper).
- CHRIS SHERMAN, Times food critic