Catfish Johnny's Restaurant in Lake Panasoffkee, FL

I was driving to Dade City from Orlando a while back and wanted dinner on the way. Restaurants were thin on the route I was taking, but the internet told me there were restaurants in the town of Lake Panasoffkee. I had never heard of the tiny little town, but the highest rated restaurant was called Catfish Johnny's. Headed that way and lost cell signal, meaning that my meal was phone free.

I ordered the Catfish Fingers Dinner. This consisted of a huge mountain of deep fried, boneless catfish. The crispy batter was nice and flavorful and the fish was tender. Corn fritters, cheese grits, and fried okra were served as sides.

With the slim pickings of restaurants that I had in the area, I think I chose well!

Jacques-Imo's Café in New Orleans, LA

After a day of wandering and riding streetcars around New Orleans with no real destination in mind, it was decided it was dinner time. A random streetcar stop was chosen which appeared to have some nearby restaurants, and we started exploring. A Lebanese or sushi restaurant were the winning choices for the area until Jacques-Imo's was spotted. I had overheard people on the streetcar talking about the restaurant, so we decided to check it out. The sign out front advertises Warm Beer, Lousy Food, and Poor Service. It sounded like a gimmicky way to get people to pay for the experience of a bad restaurant. We were there and overheard people taking about the restaurant, so why not? Turned out that Jacques-Imo's was not any of those things and ended up being my favorite dining experience in New Orleans.

Jacques-Imo's appeared to be a somewhat typical looking bar when entering the restaurant. That's until they take you to their table through their show kitchen to the multi-level dining room in the back. Once seated and we took a look at the menu, Jacques-Imo's was much more of a gourmet fine dining establishment than I was expecting. The meal started with garlic cornbread. I've had cornbread and I've had garlic bread, but I have never had the two combined. It was delicious.

Under the appetizers, there were two items that have been on my food bucketlist for a while. I was debating which one to get, but we ended up trying them both. The first was Boudin Balls. These were stuffed with jalapenos and pepper jack cheese, served with Creole mustard sauce for dipping. I was told before going on my trip that I had to try Boudin Balls. These deep fried balls of mystery sausage meat were somewhat reminiscent of a jalapeno popper, only way better!

The other appetizer which I had to try was the Fried Rabbit Tenderloin. As someone who had a pet rabbit for years, I always wondered what rabbit meat tasted like. Until Jacques-Imo's, the opportunity didn't easily present itself to find this out. The meat had somewhat of a creamy quality which was very nice. I'm not sure of this is a characteristic of rabbit meat itself, or if perhaps the creaminess was infused into the meat from being fried. Either way, I can now say I've eaten rabbit and it was very tasty.

A spinach salad came next. It was topped with a fried oyster, which was unexpected.

I had the Stuffed Catfish for my entree. To blackened filets of catfish were served over a mound of crabmeat stuffing. This was topped with hollandaise sauce and scallions. This dish was bursting with flavor. The seasoning on the catfish was somewhat spicy, countered with the creamy hollandaise. The crab stuffing was also very nice!

The catfish was served with two sides. I chose the Red Beans & Rice and Corn Macque Chow. The red beans and rice was good, but nothing new to me. I had never heard of corn macque chow though. It's apparently a sort of stew made from corn and other vegetables. I enjoyed the dish!

Jacques-Imo's Cafe wasn't on my list of restaurants to check out in New Orleans. My visit to the restaurant was completely random, but I'm glad I ended up there. Jacques-Imo's Cafe turned out to be my favorite food experience while in New Orleans!

Aunt Catfish's On the River in Port Orange, FL

I have been to Aunt Catfish's On the River in Port Orange a few times. On each visit, the restaurant always seems like they have a wait and the food has been consistently good.

My latest visit to Aunt Catfish's happened on a cold night in January. The meal started with a trip to their Fixins Bar. Almost all meals at Aunt Catfish's include at least access to the food here, if not their salad bar as well.

The Fixin' Bar is a small buffet table that includes cheese grits, baked beans, two types of cole slaw, apples, and corn bread. Being able to stuff yourself on all-you-can-eat baked beans so you're full before the actual meal is served can be a bad thing, but is still enjoyable on occasion. The food here was all tasty, especially the cheese grits and the cole slaw.

I had the Cajun catfish for my meal. At a place called Aunt Catfish's, I figured I might as well eat the namesake. Two filets of fish were served with a lemon slice and cinnamon roll on a huge fish shaped plate.

Overall, the fish was tasty. The Cajun seasoning was good and the catfish was cooked properly. I wasn't too impressed with the cinnamon roll, but including dessert is always a nice touch regardless. This wasn't my first visit to Aunt Catfish's, nor will it be my last...

Lone Cabbage Fish Camp in Cocoa, FL

I ate lunch at the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp, located on 520 between Cocoa and Orlando. It's one of those places that reeks of classic Florida, located right along the St. Johns River with a constant flow of airboat traffic going by.

 As I was exiting the car, I spotted this concrete gator:

Then I walked down to the river and saw this gator peeking out of the water. Is it strange that while looking at this guy in the river, I decided I wanted some alligator for lunch?

Once inside, I started looking over the menu and decided to do one better than just alligator. I ordered the combo which consisted of not just one, but three river dwelling creatures. The combo came with alligator, frogs legs, catfish, hush puppies, cole slaw, and fries.

Everything on the plate was deep fried (except the cole slaw). It was far too much fried food and I ended up leaving some of it over. The gator was the best meat on the plate, with the catfish being tasteless and the frog legs being far too slimy for me to eat more than one. I would even say the frog legs were undercooked based on the consistency. I've only eaten the meat a couple other times though so I'm no expert.

Overall, the food was actually pretty bad here. The gator meat was the only thing that had any flavor in my plate. Normally with fried foods, the flavor is in the batter, but this wasn't the case here. Really though, you don't come to a place like the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp for the food. You come for the riverside dining environment. You come for views like this:

B.B. King's Blues Club at Pointe Orlando

B.B. King's Blues Club is one of the newer restaurants in the Pointe Orlando Mall on International Drive in Orlando, FL. When someone mentioned that they wanted to give the restaurant a try, I pulled out a coupon book that I recently acquired and found this:

We made our way into the touristy section of Orlando and reached the mall, and then followed the signs and paintings of Blues musicians into the restaurant.



When we walked in, the restaurant was mostly empty at about 5:45 on a Saturday night. I ordered a Catfish Po Boy as well as the free fried pickle appetizer. Not long after ordering, a band started playing up on stage.

The pickles were soon served, and the portion was enormous. If I were to estimate, they probably used at least three average sized cucumbers to make all of these fried pickles. This was my first experience eating fried pickles, and I don't know what to think of them. I love pickles, but deep frying them is just weird. They tasted okay, but I'll take normal un-fried pickles over these any day. I suppose the weirdness of deep fried pickles is probably similar to deep fried pizza.

My Catfish Po Boy followed not long after the pickles. The sandwich consisted of fried catfish, lettuce, tomato, tar tar sauce (how they spelled it), and French fries. It all tasted okay, but was nothing all that great. Overall, the entire meal consisted of way too much fried food. Everything was fried, starting with the appetizer to the sandwich. I'm not used to eating like that.

While paying, there was some issues with the check, and nobody seemed to be able to explain the problem, so make sure you look twice on what you're paying while eating here.

On a trip that took me to Memphis, TN a few years ago, I encountered another B.B. King's Blues Club (I didn't eat there). At that location, they had someone outside of the restaurant who was probably the dining equivalent of a sideshow barker. The Orlando location could probably use someone like this to lure in customers. Although the restaurant started to fill up later on, it still didn't seem like enough people. Perhaps it's better crowd later on in the night.

Sterlings Family Restaurant in Astor, FL

I ate at Sterlings Family Restaurant in Astor, FL. I was eating with some people who had eaten at this restaurant in the past and thought it was so good, they had to go for an hour long car trip just to eat here again.

When I was looking at the menu, Sterlings had their normal menu, as well as an inserted Mexican menu. Something told me that I should have ordered some Mexican food, but the catfish on the normal menu was also tempting me. The menu didn't specify if the fish was grilled or fried, so that was going to be my decision maker between that or enchiladas. The fish normally came fried, but the waitress offered to have it grilled, so I agreed.

Tortilla chips, salsa, salad, and rolls came out first.



And then the main courses were served, except for my catfish. It finally came out about ten minutes later, and was rather sad looking. It was just two fillets sitting alone on a plate, and they were completely tasteless. If they put any type of seasoning on the fish, it wasn't enough.

I should have gone with the enchiladas. Someone else ordered a chicken burrito, and it looked like the best meal to be served to our table.