Also check out my review of Tres Leches for the Florida Times-Union!

We’ve been stuck in a bit of a dining rut lately, which is not necessarily a bad place to be. It’s a good rut, filled with a lot of our favorites–Picasso’s (new menu!), Nippers, Gumbo Ya-Ya’s, even a couple trips to French Pantry–so no complaints! I recently took a jaunt away from the Southside for lunch to Tres Leches’ recently relocated (from Springfield) bakery in Riverside. I’ve tried their namesake cake at the Riverside Arts Market on a number of occasions (which I reviewed here for the Florida Times-Union!), but had yet to try their lunch menu.

As the name implies, the menu is mainly Spanish-inspired with other Euro influences (for instance, French omelette on baguette). I tried the Bocadillo Manolo (Jamon Serrano, Manchego Cheese, fresh chopped marinated tomatoes on baguette):

Bocadillo Manolo

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Easily the most-anticipated restaurant opening this year, Black Sheep Restaurant in Riverside (5 Points if you’re being technical) had a lot of hype to live up to–and seems to be doing a great job. A sort-of reincarnation of Downtown’s Chew (some menu items have been retained) and newest addition to owner Jonathan Insetta’s Black Sheep Restaurant Group (which includes Orsay), Black Sheep’s focus is on food that is sophisticated but still seasonal and locally-sourced. However, I think one of the biggest draws is the fancy new building that houses the restaurant and their just-opened rooftop bar.

I’ve visited three times now, and beyond a few minor gripes have thoroughly enjoyed it. I will say though, that Mario has not been particularly impressed with his meals thus far–and I can understand why. So your ordering preferences can have a big impact on your experience, as with any place. I’ll start with our last–and I think best–visit, where I had the Braised Beef Shortribs (creamy leek and rosemary soubise, wild mushroom and blue cheese bread pudding) and Mario had the Marinated Flatiron Steak (smokey onion-tomato timbale, fingerling potatoes, chimichurri)

Braised Beef Shortrib

Wild Mushroom and Blue Cheese Bread Pudding

Flatiron Steak

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gas·tro·pub noun [ˈgastrəˌpəb] – A pub that specializes in serving high-quality food. Kickbacks Gastropub in Riverside definitely has the “pub” part of this definition down; they boast over 600 different bottled beers and 84 beers on tap. With an impressive #1 restaurant in Jacksonville rating on Urbanspoon (and top 20 on Yelp), I was expecting a strong showing from the food too. In that area, I was disappointed.

I suppose a caveat here is that I am not much of a beer drinker, and didn’t order any on this visit. However, I have visited a number of gastropubs that do serve excellent food, so I find it difficult to give Jax a pass on giving this place a top rating. Cool hangout? Yes. Worthy of votes on websites that rank your eateries for out-of-towners? Probably not.

I was waffling on what to order from the extensive menu–which contains everything from typical bar food to pizza to chicken cordon bleu–before I found an item that combined two things I was interested in ordering. The French Mushroom Spread seemed like a nice appetizer, but I was sure I wouldn’t eat it all on my own (and Mario doesn’t like mushrooms), but behold! the Chicken Bistro Sandwich (focaccia bread filled with roasted chicken breast, mozzarella, fresh spinach and fire roasted red peppers) comes slathered in some of that very spread. I picked onion petals as my side:

Chicken Bistro Sandwich

We’ve spent another few weekends in Riverside, which means we found another new (very literally) restaurant to try. Pele’s Wood Fire opened its doors just before the new year, though they were known to the public previously as a catering company and Riverside Arts Market vendor. I was invited to a media dinner around that time, and proceeded to visit twice more on my own to see if they were really cookin’ with grease–or super, super hot ovens, as it were. I was also intrigued by the curiously low ratings on public review forums. I wanted to see if my media food was a fluke (possible), or if other diners’ expectations were just wildly off. Repeated negative-sounding declarations of “This is foodie pizza” (what does that even mean?) had me leaning toward the latter.

Pele's Logo

Margherita ingredients at the ready

Pele’s pizzaiolo makes certified Neapolitan pizzas, which is kind of a big deal when you consider that the certification requires special flour, bufala mozzarella, San Gennaro tomatoes from Italy, and wood fired pizzas cooked in a 1400 degree oven–which means they’re done in only 90 seconds.

My first visit for the media dinner was a fantastic 7-course feast; I practically waddled out afterward. And of course, the battery on my camera died after the second course You can, however, see some great photos and reviews on some other local blogs. We started with some wood oven-baked bread, and you could really taste the smokiness in it. The two dishes I did get shots of were the seafood platter and Limoncello wings (also fired in the ovens):
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