Hawkers Asian Street Fare Turns the Corner with Summer Menu Upgrades

Central Florida-based Hawkers Asian Street Fare has rolled out its summer rotation of new menu items, a seasonal ritual that changes out 10 percent of the menu with a fresh lineup of pan-Asian creativity. Seeing as I hadn’t been back to Hawkers since my review of the then-new Jacksonville location for the Florida Times-Union in […]
New Winn-Dixie means business with bright lights, prepared foods
Winn-Dixie has a bold vision brewing in its hometown, to go after a decidedly more upscale market. To do it, it’s rebuilt one of its own from the inside out. A previously underperforming WD shuttered in 2010 at 10915 Baymeadows Road on Jacksonville’s Southside sprang back to life Feb. 4 following a rebuilding project. With […]
Random acts of ‘free food’ Tuesday in Mandarin
Skewered as they’ve been of late with pink slime, Red China’s screams of tainted beef and dire earnings reports, McDonald’s recently scored a W in a game global brands love to play: Super Bowl advertising buzz. By broadcasting its new “Lovin’” form of random-act-of-kindness payment during the big game, Mickey D’s unearthed a smidge of much-needed Coke-like feelgood currency. […]
Cabana Grill freshens up Mex options in Mandarin
From greasy-spoon old-school to nouveau gourmet, it’s not hard to find Mexican food on the First Coast that meets just about any timeframe, budget or appetite. Somewhere in the middle, fast-casual Mex outlets like Moe’s Southwest Grill, Tijuana Flats and Chipotle promote smaller menus, fresh ingredients, salsa and hot sauce bars, modern, artsy and almost […]
Decoding the smartphone peddlers’ fuzzy math
Eight years. Four contracts. Untold thousands of dollars. That’s what Cingular Wireless/AT&T has gotten out of me since January 2007, when my angst over six years of Sprint boiled over into a messy divorce. Over where the grass was (at the moment) green as an Irish meadow in September, then-Cingular soon had me smitten by a […]
Papi Chulo’s Salsa Goes Under the Microscope Once Again
Papi Chulo’s had to put up with me a second time around when I visited recently with Jax Restaurant Reviews. Did they finally turn around that salsa?
Blast from the past to back to the future: Grotto’s menu all grown up
The Grotto’s grown up in San Marco Square, in the form of a new, ready-for-prime-dine-time menu. Let’s take a look…
Wine flights, arriving daily: Vino Volo debuts at JIA
As longer connection times, late arrivals and a host of other hassles have tarnished the once-friendly skies, airports have stepped in to provide weary travelers with more terrestrial delights between their flights. Massage stations, rock-climbing walls and libraries are some of the many amenities you’ll find in 21st century air terminals. And so it goes […]
Follow Me … to the Promised Land
Here’s where Jay lives on the social Web. Pop in and say hi.