The NoHo Bistro

You know you’re in for something a bit out of the ordinary when the sign above the door asks, “Have You Had Your Bison Burger Today?” I had just emerged from my car and was taking a picture of that sign, when Jessica Raia-Long, founder and co-owner of The NoHo Bistro with Tina Hurless, swept out the front door to greet me and the good friend who had brought me to experience this special, newly relocated luncheon restaurant (1714 North Armenia Ave., Tampa, FL 33607; 813-514-0691). This is indeed a special place, one of two forward-looking ventures I visited recently in a part of Tampa that will one day be its hippest part.

West Side Stories: The West Tampa Blog, which is ”… dedicated to the residences and businesses who share the vision of restoring the multi-cultural community of West Tampa,” details a “Valentine’s Day Aphrodisiac Dinner” at the NoHo Bistro this past February. The “West Side Stories” blog is an excellent resource for businesses in this developing neighborhood. Sponsored by Coldwell Banker realtor, Sophia Nakis, the site is informative and performs a valuable public service with links to West End museums and galleries, places to eat, clubs, businesses, civic and historical organizations, events, and media related to this promising community. One such establishment listed is the Alessi Bakery, covered in a previous post.

Another West Tampa promotional site is the West Tampa Chamber of Commerce site that provides some historical photographs of the area and another listing of West Tampa dining and entertainment.

Growing a new business is never easy, and especially not in our current economy, nor in developing parts of a city. An article from 2006 in the Tampa Bay Business Journal details some of the issues bogging down attempts by young entrepreneurs, such as Tina and Jessica, to develop West Tampa. Hopefully, the city may be ironing out some of the conventional thinking that has created some of these obstacles.

There is an excellent 2005 “What’s Brewing” St. Pete times article By Susan Thurston entitled “W Tampa hungers for this,” that paints a picture of the real estate conditions that prompted the move of NoHo Bistro to its current location. I’m curious to know if commercial real estate rental prices in their old, South Howard location are as oppressive today as they were three years ago.

Back to the Bison: the NoHo Bistro Bison Burger is only one of several gourmet meals available for lunch, Monday-Friday 11:00 am – 3:00 pm. The lunch menu includes a number of inventive full-meal dishes as well as some interesting sandwiches, novel soups made fresh daily (crème fraiche and gruyere crouton for instance!), signature salads, a weekly special and their homemade desserts. I tried one of these on my visit, a special cookie combining chocolate and cayenne. Special is the best way to describe the entire NoHo Bistro experience, from the food to its interior of effective murals on perpendicular walls and touches of luxuriant appointments about the room.

And lunch is really just the beginning. NoHo Bistro has an extensive catering service. Hors d’oeuvres and Corporate Lunch menus serve as examples of the kind of food available through their catering service. As you can see, it’s not the dreaded rubber chicken and yellow rice meal too many catered meals foist off on us. The Corporate Lunch concept is for occasions when the boss says, “get us something hot for 8 people,” and it’s delivered to the business. Despite its name, it’s not limited to lunch; it might be for a working breakfast either at the business or at the NoHo restaurant itself. I think their approach to catering is flexible and fits well with the needs of clients.

In addition to meals that can be either picked up or delivered they can host up to 50 people at the restaurant for private dining events in the morning or evenings Monday through Friday and all day Saturday or Sunday. Of course, they also provide complete catering at your venue for events up to 150 people.

The 2nd Sunday of each month (except July and August) from 10:30 am—2:00 pm, the NoHo Bistro is open for a special (that word again, but amply earned) Sunday Brunch for which reservations are required. They have exciting holiday menus, that can be picked up, delivered, or eaten on the premises by special arrangement (except for the Thanksgiving menu which can only be picked up). Of course, since it’s TAMPA, that means Gasparilla! The NoHo has a special Gasparilla menu that can be eaten on premises, picked up, or catered.

Their other events have run the gamut from baby showers and weddings to corporate events such as bar associations, dentists groups, and pharmaceutical societies. An event, just this past week, was the Creative Loafing Wine Club which showcased six wines, each especially paired with appetizers of soba noodles rolled on forks in sesame oil, pork carnitas, yucca crisps, that delicious sounding sweet potato-apple soup, beef and horseradish crostini with onion marmalade, three cheese macaroni with gorgonzola crumb topping, and grilled peaches with chicken and goat cheese crostini…hungry yet? Earlier this summer was a Beer Tasting evening at which special brews were paired with appropriate foods. Easy to see why they were finalist for the 2007 Small Business of the Year award.

If their services ended there it would be enough, but perhaps the most special aspect of the mission of the NoHo Bistro is its selection of summer cooking classes for kids and cooking camps for kids. What a tremendous idea! There is a brief Channel 10 video, “Kids spice up diet by cooking for themselves” about the NoHo Bistro summer cooking classes for kids. I can’t imagine any camp more beneficial than this. I especially like the idea of the cooking class that is a parent/child class where you get to learn together.

Here’s some information about the co-owner/chefs borrowed from the NoHo Bistro’s website :

• Jessica Raia-Long: BA Auburn University with dual degrees in German and Communications AOS in Culinary Arts from New England Culinary Institute; worked in culinary field for the last 10 years, personal chef and caterer since 2001, founded The NoHo Bistro in May 2004.
• Tina Hurless: BA Florida State University with dual degrees in English and Communications. Certified Culinary Degree from Hillsborough CC; held a variety of positions from lead Garde Manager to Sous Chef over a four star restaurant in a 5 year span, joined Jessica with The NoHo Bistro in 2005.

One note of explanation: “NoHo,” probably means “North Howard,” as opposed to “SoHo,” which was the old location of the restaurant (South Howard). Non-Tampa residents need to know that Armenia (the actual address of the new location) and Howard are both one-way streets running in opposite directions that parallel each other on this end of town.

ADDENDUM: a friend who read this post asked if I liked the chocolate and cayenne cookie I mentioned. For the record: the cookie was excellent! (Thanks for pointing out my omission.) Chocolate and cayenne is actually the original way chocolate was prepared in Mexico where chocolate was first used. If you’ve ever had the Mexican dish, chicken mole (pronounced “MO-lay”), then you’ve had chocolate and red pepper combined. Some folks don’t like mole, but I love it. So…if one likes that taste, then one would have liked these cookies, which I do and definitely did. (That’s NOT to say that I mean that like the old Irish joke, “He’s a good enough fella…if you like that kind a fella.”) I took two of these cookies as a treat to a good friend who, after eating them and reading the post, decided she’s going to take another friend to NoHo for lunch. She’s hoping that the friend, who works near NoHo, will in turn take someone else, and that she’ll have then done her part to help a young business succeed. I hope others do the same. It would be great to see these young chefs prosper.

 

Most images link to larger images.
click on larger image for closeup

Tagged as: Florida, FOOD, french food, restaurants, Tampa