If I haven’t mentioned it before, I was born and reared (“Chickens are raised, children are reared!” -HS English teacher) in Louisiana (I have definitely mentioned this before). Also if I haven’t mentioned it before, I regard most “New Orleans style” or “Cajun” restaurants outside Louisiana with a wary eye (I mention this every chance I get). So even giving Gumbo YaYa’s a chance was kind of a big deal for me. I was convinced after taking a look at their menu, which looked pretty legit. Not that we don’t serve up a plethora of dishes smothered in butter and cream-based sauces in Louisiana, but that is really not the majority–or the best–of what we have to offer. The hole-in-the-wall type spots serving up overstuffed po’boys and fried seafood plates–now that’s where it’s at. And luckily, the menu at Gumbo YaYa’s doesn’t just look legit, it tastes that way too. Let’s start with the gumbo:

Chicken & Sausage Gumbo

Seafood Gumbo

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I’m christening a new type of cuisine: beach-mex. Don’t steal that, it’s being copyrighted. This new term was required to describe the cuisine at TacoLu, a perpetually crowded spot “across the ditch” (I’m learning native Jacksonvillian terms!) on Beach Blvd. TacoLu does not strive for Mexican cuisine purity like my beloved Bone Garden Cantina in Atlanta, but it also doesn’t offer cheese and sauce-covered tex-mex like some other “Mexican” restaurants in Jax. The $3 tacos (plus a few specialty tacos that cost a bit more) are clearly the biggest draw here.

We’ve braved the crowd and rather nightmarish parking situation (somewhat alleviated now by complementary valet) twice now. Our visits were quite spread apart because Mario so disliked his choice for our first meal, the enchilada Suizas (freshly made corn tortillas layered with pulled, roasted chicken, topped with a creamy tomatillo sauce and Monterrey Jack cheese). I liked my meal well enough to work on convincing him to go back to try it again–left to right: the Mahi taco (Blackened fish on a freshly-made corn tortilla with cabbage, fresh mango salsa and chipotle crema), the Taco Rosa (Seared Ahi Tuna with Cucumber-Avocado salsa, chipotle-ponzu sauce and wasabi-soy sauce), and a taco special which I can’t quite remember but which I think is a tuna tartare.

Taco Spread

I’m always surprised at the lack of waterfront dining in Jacksonville. After a day at the beach, your options are mainly limited to mediocre bar food as eats go. While not on the beach (just a short ride away on a marina on the Intracoastal), Nipper’s Beach Grille provides the waterfront atmosphere along with great island-inspired food. I especially wanted to visit after discovering that the executive chef was former Top Chef contestant Kenny Gilbert. He has since moved on to South Beach, but left his influences!

Mario and I visited for dinner a few months back and enjoyed the food, and recently I was invited out for a “Flip Flop Sunday” where I was treated some new drinks and menu items. I’ll start with the latter visit since the pictures are nicer

The Flip Flop Sunday event revolved around “The Bad Habit” (with rum floater), Nippers’ signature drink:

Drink Menu

The Bad Habit

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The latest venture of Jacksonville’s Medure Brothers (the minds behind Matthew’s Restaurant and Restaurant Medure), M Shack, is working to establish itself as the place to visit for creative burgers at the beach. The airy space includes a full bar and fits well with the beach location. The menu is displayed on large chalkboards on the wall–but FYI, you don’t have to stand back from the counter to decide on your order, there are smaller printed menus there too.

M Shack

M Shack interior

With promises of competitively-priced, high quality burgers, I had to go see what they had to offer. And once I caught wind of their menu a few weeks before opening, I knew what I’d be ordering: The Medurable, an M burger (fairly standard cheeseburger) topped with foie gras and bacon onion compote, $18. Mario had the much more affordably priced The Sunrise Burger (bacon, farm egg, American cheese and Shack Sauce):
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What a slacker I’ve been! The only excuse I can offer is that I’ve been doing little eating out or even creative cooking in the interest of shedding a few pre-wedding pounds (only about a week to go!). However, I did make it out to Jax beach for a little relaxation a few weekends ago, and in order to sate an odd lobster roll craving of mine, decided to stop by A La Carte, a catering company and “gourmet shop.” The cute little building just off A1A/3rd St. looks like it was picked up from a New England coast and plunked here on the Florida coast.

A La Carte

Their “Authentic New England Style Lunch” served Friday-Tuesday features items such as fried clams, a Haddock sandwich, a “clam cake” sandwich, and the aforementioned Maine lobster roll.
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Driving around Jacksonville, you are bound to notice one ubiquitous identifier of locals: Salt Life car decals. It might be an exaggeration to say that something like 1 in 5 cars carries a Salt Life sticker–but not much of one. After a week or so, my curiosity got the best of me and I hit the internets to find out what Salt Life was all about. Turns out, it’s a surf shop + restaurant out on Jax Beach. The restaurant portion seemed to be well-loved, so I convinced a few other new-hires at the job to check it out with me one weekend.

Salt Life Food Shack

Here we find another misnomered restaurant–calling the place a food “shack” is sellint it extremely short. The modern wood and stucco exterior is made more casual by beachy-but-classy interior decor, like gorgeous wood floors and tables inlaid with ocean blue tile (don’t quote me on any of that, I’m no designer). I was excited to have dining buddies who were down with slurping oysters, and we ordered both the chargrilled and raw platters to share.

Raw Oyster Platter

Garlic Parmesan Oysters

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