Yaga's and Sky Bar

The Lovely Spouse and I went to Galveston for Mardi Gras festivities yesterday. Because the laptop has trouble posting picts, and I know these posts are so much better with picts, I'll post in sections. This first one focuses on two of the restaurants in Galveston, Yaga's and Sky Bar. We ate at both yesterday.

Starting with lunch at Yaga's. Yaga's is a casual dining restaurant on The Strand in Galveston. I ate there a number of years ago before Hurricane Rita destroyed their exterior brick wall and before Hurricane Ike flooded them. They feature casual fair, mostly sandwiches and snacking types of meals. Their special for yesterday was a crab cake sandwich, which is why I chose to eat there. The Lovely Spouse wasn't overly hungry so he joined me for an appetizer and a drink.

The decor at Yaga's is funky and casual, but inviting. It's family friendly in addition being appropriate for enjoying a drink. For Mardi Gras they also had a shot bar outside. The beer selection is nothing to write home about but they have the average beers most people get (Bud, Bud Lite, Miller, etc) on draft and a few domestics and Mexican beers in bottles. Of course they had Shiner.

The crab cake sandwich would not be well received in Maryland, but since moving to Texas I've come to expect that everyone makes their own version of crabcakes and that's OK. Just don't expect anyone to follow any specific pattern. The ones at Yaga's were flavorful and were accompanied by bacon, pesto, lettuce, tomato, and grilled onions. I obviously got mine without the onions. And I had a choice of sides so I chose the cajun potatoes, which I just couldn't finish. The Lovely Spouse got the spinach dip which was for the most part what you would expect from any restaurant's spinach dip. I liked that it wasn't too garlicy, but he stated there was an unusual chemical flavor to it. It came with a huge bowl of chips, which were fine, and salsa.

In all I still like Yaga's. It's a good place for an inexpensive, no fuss, casual meal and a beer.

We had dinner at the Sky Bar on Post Office. Sky Bar is located almost across the street from the Galveston Opera house about 2-3 blocks away from The Strand. It's a close enough walk that you don't have to move your car if you found a good spot for walking around The Strand entertainment district. This was my second time eating here and The Lovely Spouse's third time. This time, in order to avoid a wait to be seated, we sat at the sushi bar.

The menu at the Sky Bar is ecclectic Japanese-Asian-American fusion. They feature fresh sushi, sashimi, very orginal rolls, classic rolls and a host of interesting savory dishes. They also have a creative drink menu, where we first tried a ginger martini...on our previous trip. It was quite tasty. On this trip The Lovely Spouse got a Japanese beer, Asahi, and I sampled the Hana Lychee wine. Delicious. It was sweet but also refreshing.

We settled on appetizers and a roll each. He got the beef skewers (I missed the name of the dish) for his appetizer. It was two skewers of grilled beef cubes with onions and peppers on a bed of crunchy noodles and carrots. I got the seaweed salad, which was pretty much the same as seaweed salad anywhere. It was fresh and exactly what I was in the mood for at the time.

The Dragonfly Roll

For our rolls, The Lovely Spouse got the dragonfly roll and I got the Sky Bar roll. Unless a roll is truly unique, most of them taste the same to me. The dragonfly roll, in my opinion, was just a roll. It reminded me of a california roll with different sauces and a topping of fish eggs and avacado. Again, it was alright. The Sky Bar roll was quite original; three kinds of fish and rice wrapped in cucumber and swimming in a ponzu sauce. The taste was delicious and fresh but a bit unbalenced on the acid side, kind of the way certain oranges taste just a wee bit too acidic. But, again, it was delicious and highly original.

The Sky Bar Roll

We'll definitely be back to The Sky Bar. It's a convenient place to get sushi near The Strand and the quality is always good. The service is always good and the decor is not at all stuffy. The prices are what you would expect for sushi in the entertainment district and across from the opera house. Not really cheap, but not outragiously expensive.