Don’t be caught talking about Mardi Gras in New Orleans in Mobile!
Mobile was founded in 1702 and during its first 100 years, Mobile was a colony of France, Britain and lastly Spain. Mobile only became a part of the United States in 1813.
It prides itself on being a cultural hub of the Gulf Coast. We checked into the fabulous Renaissance Plaza Hotel amongst a throng of choristers. Mobile was hosting the American Choral Directors convention. We came across a number of museums and a symphony orchestra and professional opera on our walk around the historic district of Mobile. The architecture is very similar to New Orleans but older. Note if you comment on anything similar to NOLA you must add ‘but older’. Mobile is known for having the oldest organized Mardi Gras celebrations in the United States. Its French Catholic colonial settlers celebrated this festival from the first decade of the 18th century. Beginning in 1830, Mobile was host to the first formally organized Mardi Gras.
Not far from the waterfront is the park where every Mardi Gras parade ends, around the park are the various characters historically associated with the festival.
Landing from Houston and all that clay colour we didn’t know what to expect in Mobile and to be fair between the Airport and the Mobile historic district it’s very uninspiring. Lot’s of large format retail areas along wide highways, but as you arrive in downtown Mobile suddenly the scene changes to older buildings with wrought iron edged balconies, narrow streets with art installations, large churches and town squares. Charming and full of personality and squirrels.
On the way into downtown Mobile we took a side trip to the Edwin Watts Golf store, we needed to buy golf shoes for Scott and balls for our next few weeks. I had hopes of finding my favourite gloves, gloveit brand. I was in for a bit of a surprise though. The retail space must have been close to 300sqm and in maybe 3% of this space was the ladies golf section. We had no problem finding men’s shoes and our golf balls but had I wanted to spend an enormous amount of dollars I couldn’t have. So ladies, put your dollars away, they are no use at Edwin Watts.
We spent 2 nights in Mobile and the downtown area is fun. It’s an easy grid system to navigate with Dauphin Street being the main eat street.
Eating
Meditterranean Sandwich shop for lunch. Yum Yum Yum. I had the Dixie Chicken which was so perfectly tasty and fresh that I did think it would be great to go back a second time if time allowed. It was fresh grilled pita filled with chicken, conecuh (hickory smoked) sausauge, BBQ harissa sauce, jalapeno confit, red onion, cheddar & gouda cheese, bearnaise & aioli sauce. It was licensed but we avoided starting to drink at midday. The menu is big and the small space was packed.
Wintzells, this is an Alabama classic but left us a bit disappointed. At Wintzells we tried fried pickles which were ok but the ‘fried’ overwhelmed the pickle. Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to be. We decided to try Chargrilled Oysters instead of fresh, at home we only eat Oysters Fresh so we thought we should embrace the American practice of having them cooked. They were fine but lost the Oyster flavour under the butter and cheese topping. We finished our grazing with Chilled boiled shrimp and this was fantastic. Naked cooked shrimp, fresh, perfectly cooked. A nice end to the dinner.
Magnolia Grove Golf Course, here we bought cart sandwiches which were the best sandwiches we’ve had for a while, thick white fluffy bread, fresh lettuce, tomato, ham & turkey. The coffee was drip coffee and was served in buckets! Well maybe I exaggerate but seriously the foam cup held at the very least 500ml (2 cups) of coffee. Then after the round we ordered the quaesadilla for me and a burger for Scott with a Lemonade & Coke, again the drinks were super-sized. This time I estimate between 750ml & 1litre of liquid for $3. The food was very good, fresh and tasty. Certainly better than the average club catering in NZ. Having said that the RTJT business model is a success because the clubs are run as country clubs for the public. Everything is high end, friendly and professional.
Chuck’s Fish in Mobile part of a group of Chuck’s Fish restaurants set up originally to showcase the seafood from the gulf of Mexico. All the seafood in the restuarants comes from their own wholesale market in Harbor Docks. It’s claim is top notch dining with excellent service. It’s still casual enough that we saw other diners in sports gear and some were obviously dressed up for the night out. The menu is small but fun. Scott had the seafood gumbo as his starter and I chose the kimchi brussels. Both were nice. The kimchi brussels was fried brussel sprouts (very tiny, baby ones) with crisp bacon bits, cilantro & aioli. I ate about half as the serve was massive and the flavour yummy but intense.
Then for entrée (main) Scott ordered Seafood Linguine and I ordered another starter because I wouldn’t have managed a main.
I had the Uptown Shrimp. Scott’s Linguine was fabulous, perfectly cooked pasta with seared scallops, gulf fish and shrimp in a really light cucumber & dill cream sauce. My Uptown Shrimp was in a char siu sauce inside a really light wonton basket with an Asian slaw. As full as I was I ate the whole thing.
Wine, Beer & Cocktails
Everywhere we went had New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc’s & Pinot Noir’s on the wine lists. But we stuck to American wines and Beers.
The first Chardonnay I had (Californian) was incredibly sweet, more like a Reisling (NZ) but eventually I found the Kendall Jackson Chardonnay, also from CA, that was more like our NZ Chardonnay’s. Drier and buttery. It popped up on a few menu’s so I had a safe default if nothing else sounded right.
I did have the Roth Estate Chardonnay (CA) at Chuck’s which was truly lovely.
Scott tried Michlob beer, standard lager, which he say’s was truly awful. He tried two more brands but said they all tasted like DB draught which is a pretty low rating. When we asked for local small brewery beers (craft) there was nothing available. I’m certain there is in the States but just not where we were.
Cocktails are always our ‘on holiday’ thing so we had a few. I discovered a taste for a fairly simple champagne cocktail which has lemon in it. I’m going to try this at home by adding a little Lemoncello to my bubbles. Scott had a great Bramble in Houston which was basically Gin, Lime and Blackberry. It was slightly sour. Both of these cocktails went very well with the raw oysters.
Coffee
There was one Coffee cafe in Mobile, called Serbas, on Government Street. We don’t know what the coffee is like because the queues are considered good at 40 minutes wait time.
Apart from this it’s drip coffee in most places, which is nice enough but the smallest size seems like a bucket.
Mobile was fun, we’d go back.
