When In Florida You Have To Eat (And Drink)

Well, in five days you have to eat and I went to a few places while in Florida. I have never rated restaurants, and I am not starting now. I will just give some short words on each of these places where I broke bread (mostly in liquid form).

Mulligans at NAS Jax Golf Club:
The restaurant inside the golf club on base was pretty good. It offered American food that you will find at most bar restaurants. I went with the club sandwich because it is safe and hard to mess up and I wasn't disappointed. Maybe the best thing was I got a couple of local draft beers. The first was Duke's Cold Nose Brown Ale from Bold City Brewing, it was a solid offering which I gave a 3.75 on BeerAdvocate. The second was from Veterans United Craft Brewing, the IPA, Hop Banshee. I liked it a little better than Dukes (3.88 on BeerAdvocate)

Mulligans at the Golf Club.

Inside (Photo from Mulligans site).

Navy Lodge Breakfast:
I would be remiss if I didn't mentioned the other place on base we ate and it was where we had the most meals, the Navy Lodge complimentary breakfast in the lobby. Now I am not going to say it was the best breakfast (I mean it was nothing like some of the ones I had in Europe), but it was pretty good. The best part of the breakfast was it had waffles.

From Navy Lodge site.

Columbia:
The next place was one we didn't go to. We had planned to eat at Columbia Restaurant, one of the oldest restaurants in Florida having been in St. Augustine since 1905. There was an hour wait for the Spanish Restaurant, so we passed.

On St. George Street.

World of Beers
It did open up time to stop and have an appetizer and some adult beverages at the apt named World of Beers. It was here that I had my second beer from Bold City, the Super Secret Stout, which I liked and gave a BeerAdvocate rating of 4.17. However, the next beer was one of the most unique I have ever had and its name said it all...Death by Rivertown Brewing out of Cincinnati, OH. When I am somewhere like Florida I try to stay in-state, but when you have an Imperial Stout brewed with Ghost Peppers, I had to try it. I will say it was one of the best crafted beers I have had and I gave it a 4.63 on BeerAdvocate. Oh, I almost forgot we had a really good pretzel here too.

Outside the world of beers.

From Brew Professor site.

J.L. Trents Seafood & Grill:
After enjoying a couple of barley pops and watching some football we headed to J.L. Trents Seafood & Grill for some good seafood. I got the oysters, I meant to get them on the half-shell, but I didn't specify and got fried oysters which I love too. Anyway, I also got some catfish because Deb couldn't eat all of hers. If I had it to do over I might have gotten the Gator Tail (I have had Alligator before and I like it...a lot).

Outside J.L. Trents Seafood & Grill.

I guess they knew the Wood Booger was coming.

Fried oysters & beer.

Ted's Montana Grill:
On day three we didn't want to stray very far from the Navy base and Dad didn't want something too crazy, so we settled on Ted's Montana Grill. I know they have them here in Atlanta (I have ate at the original one downtown), but it was close to the Navy Lodge. Also, Dad and Terry had never eaten at one, so it was new for them. The times in the past I had ate here I had the bison burgers. This time I went with the bison steak and it was excellent. I didn't even need steak sauce, which is sign of a great slab of meat. We also had a really nice apple crisp with ice cream for dessert. The only negative was they didn't have a local beer on draft, so I had to settle for a Sam Adams Winter Lager.

Ted's off Blanding Blvd.

Inside.

Mayo Clinic:
On the fourth day, which was the day of my Dad's surgery, we got to eat twice at the Mayo Clinic. The breakfast at the Navy Lodge started at 6 am, but we left for the hospital at 5:15 which means we had to eat there. We ate first at the Cannaday Cafe where I had a blueberry muffin, it was pretty good. At lunch we tried out the cafeteria, the Bundy Cafe and Atrium, where I had soup and a sandwich. The soup was a minestrone and the sandwich was a corned beef and sauerkraut panini which was pretty good.

From yelp.com.

Col. Mustard's Phat Burgers:
After spending the afternoon with Dad, we had to head back to NAS Jax. Before we went we made a detour to the close by Jacksonville Beach. After seeing the ocean we decided to head over to a restaurant I found when looking up places the day before. This was a hamburger joint called Col. Mustard's Phat Burgers. It had been rated the best burger in Jacksonville, so I though we would give it a shot. I had the Egg Burger with bacon and it was excellent. Also, the french fries were really good, this is a place I would recommend to anyone.

Off A1A.

Inside.

Egg burger.

Chipotle Mexican Grill:
After one more breakfast at the Navy Lodge it was back to Georgia. When we got to Atlanta we decided to get something to eat before heading home. Since I knew that Deb had been "jonesing" for some Chipotle, we decided to hit the Mexican grill and even went to her favorite location in Alpharetta, off Windward Parkway. I had the chicken burrito (since I had eat plenty of beef and bison on our travels). I will say that Chipotle is one of the best fast food places and is always solid.

Windward Parkway location.

My chicken burrito & an Izze Blackberry soda.

So, that was a review of the places we ate at on our five days in Florida.