A-Z in 2023 Eating Project - The Mobile Rundown

By Mobile Rundown Staff

Are you a foodie looking to explore new culinary horizons? Look no further than Alabama’s Gulf Coast, where you’ll find a diverse array of delicious restaurants serving up everything from fresh seafood to Southern comfort food.

We’ll take you on a culinary tour of the Gulf Coast, highlighting some of the best restaurants and dishes the region offers.

So, our family was chatting about fun ideas for the New Year and…

We said, “hey, what if we tested out a restaurant each week that we’ve never been to?!?” (we’re looking to expand our horizons a bit)

We don’t eat out a ton, and when we do, we typically go to our favorites (we’ll leave them unnamed here for the sake of this project).

So, we’re doing it.This post will grow throughout 2023 as we add the new restaurants we try.

Our Rules:

We are eating our way through the alphabet. So at the end of the year, our goal is to have tried 26 new restaurants.
We’re willing to drive up to 45 minutes from our home in the, located in the center of Mobile. (we might have to adjust this for certain letters — time will tell).
Most restaurants will be affordable enough that ‘Joe and Sally’ can go eat on their family night out.

A is for… Azteca’s

Yes, I know, I can hear it now. “You guys have never been to Azteca’s?”

Surprisingly, no.

But dang, it was a really cool Mexican restaurant – the atmosphere was great – and we enjoyed the tunes (part of our fun).

I mean, have you ever had a ‘flowering’ avocado?

Me neither. Azteca’s scores a 5/5 tacos (*not a real scoring system…)

B is for… Big Bad Breakfast

Every time we drive by, the place is hopping (especially over the weekend).

The first place I’ve been to in a while where your ‘side’ can be a giant pancake.

We’ll be back for sure.

It gets a solid pancake rating

We just recently added Big Bad Breakfast to our top brunch spots.

C is for… Catalina Restaurant

Catalina is in Bayou La Batre. We had heard good things about it, so we were willing to take a bit of a drive (and on a foggy night!) It didn’t disappoint.

One of my goals is to try new things, but… I always like to test out PoBoy’s when I go to seafood restaurants. How else can I compare restaurants if I don’t do this?

It was solid. Our table was raving about the freshness.

Crab Rating is off the charts

D is for… Debris

We’ve wanted to try Debris since it opened. In its previous location was a local bar called Boo Radley’s (the only bar I ever recall selling bottles of Boone’s Farm). If you visit Debris, you’ll even notice a bit of homage paid to ole’ Boo.

I’m a big fan of Poboys. The plan is to try new things, so I went with the Pistolette. The Pisto-what?

This was a deep-fried piece of tasty bread with crawfish and cream sauce inside.

Totally worth the calories.

E is for… El Milagro y Taqueria y Pupuseria

Thanks for the recommendation, guys!We enjoyed testing this one out.“Try some pupusas” is what I was told.Pup-who?One of my goals is to also try new food items in addition to the new restaurants.

They were awesome like a fried pancake stuffed with meat and goodness.Just a heads up. If you order water, it will come in a bottle and be $0.99. Some may not like that, but I thought it was fun. It felt authentic – like I was a traveler.And the music was authentic as well!

We ordered, and I swear it wasn’t 5-7 minutes, and we had food on our table.

Great experience!

F is for… Front Yard Tacos

We kept hearing about this spot. “Man, have you tried Front Yard Tacos? It’s the perfect spot for some breakfast tacos.”

We finally got our chance to give it a shot.

It’s downtown, connected to Nova Espresso in its (you guessed it) front yard.

I had the Breakydilla. Somehow they managed to get both sweet and spice in this thing. I’m a sucker for multi-flavor food.

And nice that you can snag a coffee while you’re there. We’ll definitely be back!

G is for… Grace on Dauphin

As soon as the city ordinance passed allowing for rooftop restaurants and bars, we (luckily) had a few quickly spring up.

Grace on Dauphin is one of those, and it’s been on our list to check out.

The day we visited for lunch, they had just installed these awesome umbrellas. Perfect!

I had the mother clucker chicken sandwich. And man, it was mother cluckin’ good!

We’ll be back for date night for sure.

H is for… Hammered Cow

Get more photos and check out the full experience here!

I is for… Iron Hand Brewing

Check out the full experience with photos here.

J is for… Jerusalem Cafe

Check out the full experience with photos here.

K is for… Koma Bistro

Check out our full eating experience here.

L is for… Las Floriditas

Las Floriditas is a Cuban-styled ‘underground restaurant and speakeasy’ in Downtown Mobile.

You’re required to have a password to enter (how cool!)

A bit of history on the restaurant:

Las Floriditas is a widely recognized homage to El Floridita in Havana, Cuba. This famous bar has a history dating back to 1817 when it was first opened as Piña de Plata. In 1914, it was renamed to El Floridita. The bar gained worldwide fame as a beloved spot for the renowned writer Ernest Hemingway. He would often relax there at the end of the bar after a day of writing. Nowadays, a life-size golden statue of Hemingway stands at the very spot he used to frequent. Floridita is renowned as the “birthplace” of the daiquiri, which was Hemingway’s favorite drink. Each day, a daiquiri is placed in front of his life-size statue at the end of the bar as a tribute.

First things first – there’s a dress code.

Don’t show up in your pajamas or flip-flops.

Dress to impress.

And if you’re the owner of a Panama hat, even better.

You’ve got to know where the place is, so…

Find the staircase and head on down.

Then you’ll come upon this smiling face!