FloridaFoodHound

Cochon De Lait, Bunny Bread, Mojo Bar-B-Que and S.O.B.'s

Last weekend we took our annual summer trip to New Orleans to visit my family.  This year, we also caught the last weekend of JazzFest, which is not just great music, but also great food.  I tried the much talked about cochon de lait po-boy and instantly fell in love with it.  Who woulda thunk that shredded pork, cold cabbage and horseradish sauce on french bread could taste so good?

While we're on the topic of food, we visited the Whole Foods in New Orleans and were reminded how much we'd love to live near one of these "food amusement parks".  We do have Fresh Market and it's fine, but it's not the same.  On a visit to Rouses, a local grocery chain, we posed in front of loaves of Bunny Bread.  Growing up in New Orleans, Bunny Bread was synonymous with white bread like Xerox is to copies or Kleenex is to tissues.

Switching back to the local restaurant scene here, we did check out two restaurants in recent weeks with one hit and one miss.  First, the hit.  This past weekend, we decided to spend a day exploring Jacksonville.  Some reading beforehand on Chowhound suggested that Mojo Bar-B-Que was worth trying.  The self-styled "southern blues kitchen" didn't disappoint.  I ordered a plate of pulled pork and smoked turkey with coleslaw, corn and cheese grits (can't pass up cheese grits).  The pork was tender and the turkey slices were tasty.  Traci ordered smoked turkey with fries and corn.   The corn was knockout and you could see that it had just been cut from the cobb.  Mojo's does a variety of sauces.  Our favorites was the mojo, chipotle and mustard-style sauces.  Prices were reasonable for the amount of food we got.  The server was good and the atmosphere (casual, clean with a laidback, bluesy motif) fit nicely with the food.  If Mojo's wasn't  all the way in Jacksonville, we'd become fast regulars.

The miss was unfortunately closer to home.  Again, thanks to a positive comment on Chowhound, we decided to try S.O.B.'s of Newberry for dinner one night this past week.  Browsing S.O.B.'s website, the place sounded perfect.  S.O.B.'s cutely stands for Shrimp, Oysters, Beer.  Plus,  it is apparently owned by the same restaurateur that was behind Mark's Prime downtown and M.T.'s Chophouse.  Unfortunately, our dinner was a disappointment.  First off,   the place felt like the A/C was broken.  Second, our server was sweet, but announced it was her first day and didn't know the menu.  I ordered the all-you-can-eat fried shrimp special and Traci went with chicken fingers.  While it's hard to go wrong with fried shrimp and I thought the shrimp tasted fine, both of us agreed that the fries and coleslaw were pretty blah.   The prices are good and we wanted to like the place, but the food certainly didn't match with expectations.

As always, drop me a line with your favorite independent restaurants in Gainesville and beyond.

Harry's in Lakeland: St. Augustine Location Was Better

On Saturday evening we drove over to Lakeland to meet up with some friends for dinner at Harry's Seafood, Bar & Grill in downtown Lakeland next to Munn Park. One of our friends recently landed a teaching position with a college in Lakeland and we agreed to help him check out some of the restaurants and bars in the area.

We had eaten at the Harry's location in St. Augustine a couple of times before and always had a good time. The Harry's in St. Augustine has a nice outdoor garden/dining area that reminds me a little of the French Quarter. I'm sure Harry's would be happy to hear this as they call themselves "a New Orleans style restaurant."

In addition to the St. Augustine and Lakeland locations, Harry's also has several other locations including a restaurant in Citrus Park (Tampa), which I haven't been to. I would love to say that the food was as good Saturday night at the Lakeland Harry's as it was in St. Augustine, but it wasn't.

That said, we still had a good time, the service was excellent (everyone we met in Lakeland was very friendly) and it's a cool location. Lakeland's downtown is beautifully restored and a great slice of small town America. I suspect the "small town charm" would wear off for me after a while, but you're still only about an hour or so drive away from Tampa and Orlando.

Back to Harry's, for an appetizer, I shared the fried calamari (healthy I know), which was good and I also had a small cup of gumbo. I can't say the gumbo was more than decent. I'm probably a tougher critic than most on Harry's since I grew up in New Orleans and know what "the real thing" tastes like.

For my main course, I ordered the Shrimp and Scallops Orleans, which was shrimp and scallops in a cream sauce over a grits cake (a Northerner at the table didn't know what grits was which I got a kick out of) with a side of red beans and rice. Unfortunately, the red beans and rice were dry and didn't have any seasoning, but the shrimp and scallops were tasty. Everyone else at the table didn't seem to have any complaints with their orders. I should also mention that everyone gorged on Harry's warm fresh bread and tasty garlic and chive butter.

Bottom-line: The food at the Harry's in Lakeland didn't knock my socks off, but I still think it's a good choice if you're already planning on being in the area. At least as of a year ago or so the Harry's in St. Augustine was very good.