We ventured over to Port St. Joe for dinner tonight. The short drive from Mexico Beach (crossing into the Eastern Time Zone!) offers a variety of restaurants and we have enjoyed dining in this area many times.
Tonight we decided to try a new restaurant, Uptown Raw Bar and Grill. For a Sunday evening, this place was hopping! We had a short wait for a table. Our hostess asked us if we had been there before and when we answered that we hadn't, she explained the method to their dining room.
Drinks are located in the rear of the dining room. When you are ready for your drink(s), you walk to the rear of the dining room and there you are met with coolers with soft drinks, water, tea, juice, and Gatorade. Also available are bottled beers, draft beers, wine, and wine coolers. You select your beverage of choice, return to your table, and mark your selection on your "scorecard." When you are finished with your meal, you take your scorecard to the hostess/cashier. Your check is there waiting on you and you pay as you leave.
It's a little chaotic with everyone going back and forth to the drinks, but it seems to work for them.
We started our meal with tuna dip. An ample portion for sure! We brought about half of it back to the room with us. The cayenne on top adds a nice little kick to the tuna dip which was really good.
I wanted to try the gumbo, so I ordered a cup. After tasting, I realized I should have ordered a bowl portion. The gumbo had a rich, flavorful tomato based broth with plenty of onions/peppers/celery with small shrimp and okra. An added bonus was a light amount of rice. I don't care for a bowl of gumbo that is a really a bowl of rice with a little gumbo ladled around the broth.
For my entrée, I returned to the appetizer section of the menu. I had been craving ahi tuna and there it was!
This ahi tuna was perfectly seared and served with seaweed salad, soy sauce, pickled ginger, and wasabi. It was extremely fresh tasting and the perfect dinner for this very hot evening.
Sweet Harold has been craving fish tacos and he had a choice of shrimp, grouper, mahi, tuna, chicken, and steak. As expected, he ordered the grouper version without hesitation.
The order includes two grouper tacos, topped with lettuce and cheese and comes with a cup of remoulade sauce along with a choice of chips or fries. He chose fries.
These definitely cured his craving and he's already decided next time he'll try the shrimp or mahi.
There was a nice mix of locals and vacationing families dining tonight. It was noisy, crowded, and everyone was having a great time. I looked over the diners and every table had laughter and I didn't see any grumpy faces.
Mark this one down to try on your next visit to the Port St. Joe area!
If you are an oyster lover (this is a raw bar after all!), there are at least 10 different types of oysters to choose from along with raw.
The menu also includes a variety of sandwiches, steaks, salads, pork chops and burgers.
I don't do raw, but the cooked food would be gobbled up.
ReplyDelete