St. Charles Tavern in New Orleans, LA

I got a recommendation to try the St. Charles Tavern in New Orleans from someone who was staying in my hotel. Not having any dinner plans, I walked a couple blocks down the street and gave them a try.

I had the Boudin Ball Po'boy. I tried boudin balls for the first time at Jacques-Imos Cafe a couple nights earlier in the city, but I had yet to have a po boy in New Orleans. A combination of the two sounded good! These boudin balls were different from the ones I had a Jacques-Imos Cafe. These had less of a batter around the meat inside and were a bit more uniform in their consistency. Different, but also good. The boudin balls were served on a white bread with lettuce, tomato, and a remoulade sauce. Fries were served on the side.

Florida Cracker Cafe in St. Augustine, FL

I recently spent an afternoon in St. Augustine and had lunch at a restaurant along St. George Street called Florida Cracker Cafe.

I ordered the Shrimp Po Boy. The sandwich came with two sides, and I picked collard greens and cheesy grits. The sandwich was good, with surprisingly large fried shrimp, lettuce, tomato, onion, and remoulade sauce. My general experience with shrimp po boys normally involves tiny shrimp, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since they are hidden away on a sandwich. The shrimp on this sandwich were quite large, almost taking up the width of the roll if angled correctly. I liked the sandwich, but the sides were disappointing. The cheesy grits were very plain tasting with very little cheesiness. The collards weren't much better, being so salty that I took a few bites and gave up.

Florida Cracker Cafe had okay food. I liked my sandwich but the side items could definitely use some improvement. I did try their homemade potato chips which were another option for a side, and they were very tasty. Perhaps chips would be a better choice than grits or collards as a side if I return.

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.