Cephas Gilbert tells it like he sees it. On a humid Friday afternoon in Tampa we took a visit to see Cephas down in Ybor (EE-Bor) city northeast of downtown on a culinary tip from Kit, our company manager who's from the area and had visited here a few years back. Kit waved me into her office one day last week and said she knew about our little food adventures and confessed that she was in fact a 'foodie' herself and we should do ourselves a favor and head down to Cephas' Hot Shop. she promised that it would be an 'experience like nothing else'. And she was right.
Back in the day, Ybor city was called cigar city. Vicente Ybor moved his cigar rolling empire from Cuba to the keys and eventually to Tampa where he set up shop and the northeast side proudly adopted his name. Today Ybor city, like Mulberry Street in little Italy, is reduced down to one big strip where the Tampa folks get their rocks off on the weekends. A strip of gay bars and clubs and trashy girls out front trying to lure you in. Much like the crowd you see cruising South Beach or on the weekend except Ybor seemed more reasonably priced.
Tucked back in the side streets of the main strip on a bare looking block and old boarded up houses on the corner sits Cephas Hot Shop-basically an old store front with painted splashes of the Jamaican colors and giant leafy plants dotting the sidewalk. The bright murals of the Caribbean map, the Rastafarian last supper depiction, and another mural of 7 men's faces-white and black- on the Jamaican flag all caught my eye. And off to the side we spot a bar and a man standing out on the sidewalk, where the bar spills off. He's chatting it up with the bartender behind the counter. The bartender I'm guessing wasn't Cephus since Kit said he talked a lot. Very personable. and this guy was was not saying much. The man on OUR side was having a drink-aloe I'm guessing. His name was John. No joke-with glasses this John couldve easily been my honors calculus teacher in High School...maybe on his way pick up the kids from the mall before headed out to the 'burbs'. kinda the last guy you'd expect looking so at-home at Cephus', whatever this place was. It turns out this is a twice a week spot for him. Mainly because John's Cephus' webmaster and is updating the site, taking pics, etc. But clearly a fan. John points to an entrance on the other side of the building.
"If you hungry you bedda eat," he says in his Jamaican drawl.
"We got curried goat, oxtail stew, cod fish. Dat's it."
He points his remote toward the stage and clicked on the Billie Holiday over the loudspeakers. I got the curried goat. It smelled like New York and I tucked in for some good eatin. Cephus got comfortable and goes into health benefits in Aloe Vera. and not holding back. Like if we didn't leave there completely convinced he wouldn't sleep right. Then again his life didn't seem too rough, @ 60 even with 15 children he fathered from 5 women, he later told us:) After hearing we were from NYC, he called one of them up from Long Island and put her on speaker phone as she talked about how she missed him.
"Where was I? Da Stomach. Dere's only one person who godda big belly. A female. She carry it from day won to mont seven to mont nine...after that anybody who gotta full belly-I'm sorry you no eatin-is fulla shit!....you eat pork? (we nod) GARBAGE! shrimp? GARBAGE!"
He makes a bicep and pulls his skin out. And then sized us up. Of course immediately I have to show him I'm just as worthy. Yeah! I'm proud to say I eat well so I curl up and pull my bicep out.
"You doin alright" he says looking at me like I too was a junior honorary member of Cephas' fit club.
John interjects "Give them a chance to eat," he pleads with Cephas, apologizing to us for his friend. Now I'm rarely one to walk in and out of a place completely convinced of something as major as a diet change but after he brought us around and we finished our meal on his aloe smoothie, I was sold. I take that back. mostly sold. I did some aloe research and couldnt find one negative thing. Digestion, cancer fighters, immunity builders, eyes, skin, and the list goes on. He cracked open some Tamarind, his 2nd favorite medicine and I had a bite. Something I'd always seen up in Washington Heights but I never actually eaten. Like a sweet and sour date. and then he finished it with his homemade cinnamon-ginger tea which helps digestion after a meal.
He held the aloe up like he was gutting a tuna and cut into the flesh getting every last jelly and pulpy bit. He tossed it all into the blender with ice and blended till fluffy and frothy. "Now rub it all ovah and then put it in the sole of ya shoe!"he said, pointing to the now empty Aloe leaf. And there we were, on the corner of 14th and 4th, on his word to 'hurry' rubbing aloe leaves all over our faces and neck and feet. And for whatever reason we kept speeding up:)
It was an experience. And I was sad to leave but happy to get back for the 2nd show and brag to all the folks coming back from the Cheesecake Factory that I had an aloe leaf in my shoe. and let me say for the record, as suburban and gaudy as it, The Cheesecake Factory is still damn tasty.
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