Editor Gary Nager has picked his local food favorites.
How do his top choices for Chinese food stack up agianst the choices of the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News readers?
Check it out:
Gary’s And Your Favorites: Chinese
Fushia Asian Bistro Adds An Authentic Chinese ‘Hot Pot’ Buffet
Did you love The Melting Pot the first time you ever ate there? For some people, dipping cubes of bread into boiling hot cheese or meats into equally hot oil is just a little too adventurous, while others love it so much they choose to enjoy it for Valentine’s Day or another big night out.
Invoking that same spirit of adventure is Fushia Asian Bistro, located in the Shoppes of Amberly plaza in Tampa Palms (next to Crunch Fitness), less than five miles south of the Pasco County line. Fushia owners Sharon and Chef Charlie Wang say that theirs is the first Asian restaurant in the Tampa Bay area to offer an authentic Chinese hot pot buffet and they have spared no expense to bring it to you, hoping to capture a new audience for my favorite Chinese restaurant in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel (see pgs. 38-41).
In the newer side of Fushia, where the restaurant also offers its private karaoke suites for 6-20 people, there are now multiple tables where each seat has its own stovetop burner. Each person at your table will have their own stainless steel pot which they will fill with one of about ten different kinds of broth — from Japanese-style miso to Thai curry to spicy red (oil) broth and literally any other “stock” you can imagine.
Then, you visit large refrigerated cabinets which offer a variety of flash-frozen meats — lamb, pork, beef, chicken, etc., as well as beef stomach and other choices less commonly known by the average American diner at the place.
For those who aren’t allergic to shellfish (like I am), there also is a huge selection of not only white meat fish, but also raw shrimp, clams, squid, crab claw meat and others, as well as a variety of dumplings, wontons, ramen noodles and a huge selection of veggies.
Each person at your table selects his or her own selection of these items to place into their own hot pot. Most of the items take only a few seconds to cook, while the dumplings and noodles take a few minutes.
While your hot pot is simmering, there is an ever-changing variety of appetizers for you to enjoy. On our most recent visit, for example, there was a spicy cucumber salad, spicy chicken chunks, Korean-style pickled kimchi vegetables (also spicy), and others. You also can choose from a dozen different sauces, some spicy, some sweet and mild.
Once your ingredients have been simmered in your hot pot, you pull them out using a ladle that is provided to each person with a hot pot. The food comes out piping hot and most of the fat on the meats are rendered into the pot.
“It’s a really healthy, lower-calorie way to eat,” Sharon says. “Hot pot buffets are very big in major cities like New York and even Miami. We think people here will love it, too, if they give it a try.”
Although I really enjoyed the hot pot buffet, there is an element of chance involved — you have to figure out which broth to start with because different broths definitely bring out different tastes. I really liked the so-called “fatty lamb” and “fatty pork” the most, but I preferred them in the butter broth rather than any of the spicy broths. The fish filets also cooked up fluffy and white and were particularly good with a mix of peanut sauce and Thai chili sauce.
Young people, especially college students like my WCNT-tv production assistant Gavin Olsen, really seemed to enjoy the hot pot buffet the most. Staff writer Celeste McLaughlin and billing manager Stephanie Smith (bottom right photo) also really enjoyed the adventure of the hot pot, although Celeste said she probably wouldn’t bring her younger children to try it because of the heat, although I do see kids enjoying the hibachi tables at Japanese steakhouses, which also can burn them.
Your hot pot buffet also comes with unlimited desserts (including delicious ice cream) and soft drinks, all for $25.99 per person — and yes that price is the same, whether you enjoy the hot put for lunch or dinner. The good news is that with the coupon in the Fushia ad on page 42, up to eight people in your party can each receive $2 off that cost, although the coupon can not be used on Friday or Saturday. Even so, my employees all agreed that it was well worth the cost.
Old Favorites, Too!
Of course, there were no hot pot buffets when I learned to love New York-style Chinese food during my youth growing up in Long Island. For me, Chinese food is still about great egg rolls, fried rice and spicy beef and pork dishes with traditional Chinese vegetables.
My favorite traditional dishes at Fushia are the Yan Jian pork, which is made spicy by being sautéed with jalapeño peppers. It’s amazing with Fushia’s Yong Chow fried rice, which is a savory combination fried rice with pork, beef, chicken and shrimp (I order it without the shrimp), plus some onions, egg and veggies. Yum.
I also love Fushia’s beef with Chinese broccoli, which is like broccoli stalks with spinach leaves instead of florets, as well as the true New York-style egg rolls, spring rolls and pan-fried dumplings.
I also really enjoy Fushia’s Mongolian-style chicken, the crispy Beijing (Peking) duck and so many other dishes on the extensive menu. If you want the hot pot buffet but your significant other isn’t that adventurous, you can both get what you want and enjoy a great Chinese meal.
And yes, you can even get a private karaoke suite for your party (at no additional charge) and entertain each other after dinner while you enjoy a glass of plum wine, hot or cold sake or a delicious Tsingtao or Kirin (or domestic) beer.
Fushia Asian Bistro is located at 15315 Amberly Dr. and is open every day for lunch and dinner except Monday. For more information, call 903-6705 and tell Sharon we sent you!
Quartet Of Seniors To Lead Wiregrass Ranch High Softball
Spring is in the air and so are the softballs at Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH).
The softball team embarks on the 2017 season with high hopes. After going 9-12 a year ago, the 2017 Bulls are preparing for a season with something they haven’t had, well, ever — a quartet of seniors, all of whom have signed to play collegiate softball.
Veterans Jaime Valenta, Sam Hiley, Alexis Ridolph and Kameron Aitken will lead a Wiregrass squad with hopes of making a little bit of school history.
The Bulls have never won a district title and despite going 9-6 outside the league, were 0-6 last year in Class 8A, District 4, a division filled with some of the better Hillsborough County softball programs.
However, if there was ever a year to make some history, it could be this one. Hiley, Aitken and Valenta were WRH’s top three hitters from 2016, and along with Ridolph make up the top four batters in your typical Bulls lineup.
Valenta provides the speed, and has been the team’s lead-off hitter the last two seasons. The right-handed centerfielder has signed to play at the next level with St. John’s River State College.
As the leadoff hitter, Valenta’s job is to get on base and then steal some, and she did both well last season, batting .377, including .428 over the final eight games. She led the Bulls in triples with four, and stolen bases with 15 in 16 attempts.
Valenta has 32 steals for her career.
“I’m the table-setter,” she says. “I enjoy the leadoff position, I’m more of a contact hitter. My teammates hit me around.”
Aitken, the Bulls’ shortstop, signed her letter of intent in November to play at Florida International University. Aitken brings a .973 fielding percentage over from last season, with just two errors in 21 games at arguably the game’s toughest position.
She hit .422, second on the team, and led the Bulls with four homers and 30 RBI.
Hiley, who is signed to play collegiate ball at Edward-Waters College in Jacksonville, can also play catcher, but is more of a utility player, able to fill in at third base, left field or wherever she is needed.
“I’m like the Band-Aid,” she says.
Hiley’s bat, though, can sometimes leave the opposing pitcher’s arm needing a Band-Aid. Last year, she led the Bulls with 30 hits in 65 official at bats, for a team-best .462 average. She was second on the team in runs scored (19), RBI (21), doubles (5) and homers (2). She carries over a six-game hitting streak from last season into this one, which officially opens Saturday, February 11, at Dunnellon. The Bulls home opener is tonight, February 15, 7:30 p.m., against the Land O’Lakes High Gators.
Hiley’s versatility is shared by Ridolph, who has shifted between second and shortstop in her tenure at Wiregrass and batted .317 last year. A Hillsborough Community College (HCC) signee, she’ll join her older sister Kaitlyn there, for a year.
“It feels unreal, being a senior,” Ridolph said. “I saw my sister and my friends graduate and I still can’t believe it’s actually my senior year now.”
WRH head coach Yamani Vazquez is delighted to have such a talented and experienced senior core, which will be backed up by some impressive younger players like junior Kacie Lemanski (.382) and sophomore Miranda Perez (.379), plus a sophomore-laden pitching staff.
“It’s exciting, it’s a great motivation for the younger players that the seniors are college recruits,” Vazquez says.
It wasn’t too long ago they were just starry-eyed freshmen themselves, fighting older players for playing time.
“I don’t think people consider just how fast the years go by,” Hiley said. “I remember when I was a freshman, Jordan Pierceall (a WRH senior at the time) told us that the years go by faster than you think, and I was looking at her and laughing. Now, I’ve blinked and it’s my senior year.”
Senior night will be held on April 13, against district rival Freedom High.
“I remember decorating for past Senior Nights,” Valenta said. “Now, it’s going to be decorated for us. I probably won’t cry but I don’t know.”
SPOTLIGHT ON… Back To Wellness Center!
Back To Wellness Center Chiropractic & Physical Therapy emphasizes the importance of integrated care to help people dealing with pain.
“By combining chiropractic care with physical therapy and massage therapy, we’re not just going to get you out of pain,” says owner Jonathan Hancock, D.C. (Doctor of Chiropractic). “Our goal is to rehabilitate you so the condition doesn’t become chronic.”
Dr. Hancock opened the Back To Wellness Center in 2012 and he says he was pleased to recently welcome a new associate, Esperansa Nino, D.C., to the office.
Patients who visit Back To Wellness will see Dr. Hancock or Dr. Nino for their chiropractic care, and can also see physical therapist Justin Spiegel, DPT (Doctor of Physical Therapy).
“We work closely together and even sit down and brainstorm specific conditions,” says Dr. Hancock. “We give patients a higher level of care because we are all right under the same roof. Patients get better quicker because we’re all on the same page.”
While every treatment plan is tailored to the individual, Dr. Hancock says the Back To Wellness Center often offers shorter treatment plans than patients might expect, because of this integration.
“I would say we average three to five visits to get out of pain for non-traumatic injuries,” he says.
The Back To Wellness Center treats a wide variety of musculoskeletal pains and conditions.
“We cater to all walks of life,” says Dr. Hancock. “From workers comp injuries to auto accidents to athletes.”
He adds that the office accepts all insurance plans and is “in network” for the vast majority of those plans.
“We also offer flexible, affordable cash pay plans, and work with CareCredit financing, too,” he says.
The Back To Wellness Center Chiropractic & Physical Therapy is located at 27454 Cashford Cir., in the Summergate Professional Center, behind Sam’s Club off S.R. 56. The office is open Monday-Wednesday, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.; 3 p.m.-7 p.m. on Thursday; and 9 a.m.- 3 p.m. on Friday. For more information, visit WesleyChapelChiropractor.com, or call 973-4747 to make an appointment.
‘The Good Cemeterian’ Restores The Final Resting Places Of U.S. Military Vets
It was as a budding photographer, and through a camera lens, that Andrew Lumish first noticed the mold and dirt covering the headstones he was taking pictures of in Oaklawn, Tampa’s oldest cemetery. He was particularly struck by the grime that obscured the memorials to fallen veterans, to the point where you could no longer make out their names. Lumish says he was moved by the thought that they had not only been forgotten, but that their marble and granite shrines had fallen into such disrepair.
So, with a handful of brushes, some water and D/2 Biological Solution — the only product approved for use in our national cemeteries — Lumish did something about it.
He started cleaning them, taking every Sunday to do so, and sharing his work on Facebook and Instagram. What began as the act of a good samaritan evolved into Lumish developing a cult-like social media following as “The Good Cemeterian.”
“It bothered me that many of the military markers were neglected for decades, if not for more than a century,’’ Lumish says. “I thought this would be a good way to honor our veterans, many who have just been forgotten.”
The 46-year-old Land O’Lakes resident, who owns his own cleaning business, Lumish tackled his newfound calling with vigor. He slowly perfected his trade, tombstone by tombstone, with some restorations taking 20 minutes, while others have taken months.
“It’s kind of an art form,’’ Lumish says. “It all depends on the complexity of the monument. Some have lots of nooks and crannies, and they require tooth brushes, Q-tips, whatever it takes.”
WFTS-TV, Ch. 28, the local ABC affiliate, did a small segment on Lumish in 2015 — he jokes that it was between a “Dirty Dining” segment and the weather — and it went viral, with more than 30 million online views.
Lumish shared his story with a raptured gathering at the New Tampa Rotary Club’s breakfast on Jan. 6. Club member Craig Miller had seen Lumish featured on “CBS Sunday Morning” last November — Miller says he and his wife Dee always tape the show and watch it after church — and reached out to him to be a featured speaker for the club..
“He had some really interesting stories,’’ Miller says. “He was great.”
Lumish, who says he has cleaned roughly 800 headstones and monuments of military veterans from the Civil, Spanish American, Korean, Vietnam and two World Wars, doesn’t just do restorations — he includes stories about the people buried beneath them to complement his before-and-after photos.
His most recent restorations were for World War I veteran Milton Payne Turner, who died in 1963 in a nursing home, and his son, Milton Owen Turner, who preceded his father in death when he was killed in WWII by the Nazis, just 23 days before Adolf Hitler committed suicide.
Lumish shares details of the men’s lives on his Facebook page (search: TheGoodCemeterian), and his posts have been shared, liked and commented on tens of thousands of times. He estimates he reaches roughly 400,000 people a week (or more than 20 million a year) through social media.
Lumish started on his path to becoming the Good Cemeterian in the Lutz cemetery, where he returned the luster to a monument honoring a Civil War veteran.
“I never thought about it, I just wanted to give respect back,’’ he says. “Once I became better (at it), I took on bigger projects.”
One such bigger project involved a 10-foot-tall monument to two Tampa brothers, ages 16 and 14, who died in 1891. The story goes, the older brother goaded the other, who couldn’t swim, into removing his flotation device. But, once it was removed, and the older brother realized the mistake, they both drowned while he tried to save his younger brother.
“Some of the stories are sad,’’ says Lumish, who has been lauded by the Department of Veteran Affairs and other organizations for his efforts.
Lumish has an assistant, Jen Armbruster, who helps research the stories, and uses a number of online geneaology accounts to dig into fallen soldiers’ backgrounds in great detail. He often includes photos of his subjects when they are available, and even researches unmarked graves he has restored, to unlock the past.
“We try to tell their entire life stories,’’ says Lumish, who says he spent most of his adult life in corporate America before discovering a knack for photography. “I’ve always loved history, and this has allowed me to tell stories. It can be like finding a treasure.”
People from across the globe have shown their appreciation. Lumish says he gets thousands of messages from relatives and friends of those he features, and he says schools have contacted him about having their students do something similar for projects in their classes.
Lumish may be cleaning the surfaces of monuments, but he is only scratching the surface of what he hopes to accomplish. He has a number of projects in the pipeline as he continues to tackle lost history, one grimy tombstone at a time.
“I love doing it, I love telling stories,’’ he says. “In a world bombarded with negativity, this is something positive. It’s just a personal thing for me, but it has struck a nerve across the globe. There is no better feeling.”
You can follow The Good Cemeterian at Facebook.com/TheGoodCemeterian and on Instagram at instagram.com/thegoodcemeterian.