"After a week of pretty much constant rainfall, a cold front finally pushed the rain away, leaving behind some chilly weather (below freezing temperatures, even! which quickly warmed up into the sixties by lunchtime. The air was cool and crisp, the sun was shining, altogether making a perfect opportunity to go for a motorcycle ride and find a new place to have some lunch. I had looked at the map, and found the Simmer Down Lakeside Grill on the map in Lake Butler. Seeing as there are only two or three other places to go for food in town, I went for it.. I figured a nice view of the lake while eating a burger or something might be nice. Sadly this was not the case, at least not for this visit. The bar room where the view of the water is was shut down, and only the large restaurant where the buffet was served was available. No view of the water... just a venetian blind obscured view of the playground in Lakeside Park. I went for the buffet anyway, since I had already come this far and wanted to taste the food. It was your typical Southern comfort food... fried chicken (not bad , smoked sausage (also not bad , meatloaf (good, but I haven't had it in a while, so my opinion may be biased , mashed potatoes, corn, rice, etc. The mashed potatoes were a bit odd, because when I poured some gravy on them, they instantly soaked up the gravy which is not an effect I am accustomed to. The food isn't bad. It's not great, but it isn't bad. It fills the stomach and quells hunger. About halfway through my meal, they ran out of fried chicken and decided to switch over to chicken fingers... so I tried one. This was definitely a poor choice... better to just leave it off the menu at that point and go over to some other protein... I noted that as I was leaving, they were putting out pork chops, which would have been a nice thing to try as well. I would love to try the ala carte menu at some point, but only if the other half of the restaurant is open and you can see the water. That is one of their biggest selling points, and they aren't using it! An outdoor porch overlooking the water would also be nice."
