Pulp is a juice bar with the most delicious frozen yogurt and smoothies. Below you’ll see their menu, complete with fresh juices, organic coffees, teas, and a whole slew of fresh and orgasmic smoothies.
Having been an addict of Yogaberry, I was eager to try Pulp but with some skepticism. Let me tell you… Pulp blows Yogaberry out of the water. The flavors of frozen yogurt pop and sing in your mouth. Among the froyo flavors, the raspberry frozen yogurt has a tanginess and rich flavor to it that makes you crave more, while the chocolate mousse froyo is decadent, creamy, and sinfully delicious. You won’t find mixes or added sugar in your smoothie. Instead, you’ll find organic ingredients, fresh fruit, and unique ingredients like coconut water or Nutella. My personal favorites are the chocolate strawberry, sidewalk julius, and the chocolate chai. The chocolate chai melds organic chai with nutella, banana, chocolate soy milk, and organic vanilla frozen yogurt. The perfect afternoon treat even on the chilliest of days we’ve been having. The flavor is so complex and full, but everything works so well together.

If you’re in the mood for froyo, pick a cup and serve yourself! Want some toppings? Go right ahead! Pulp has several dry toppings including lucky charms, coconut, chocolate chips, and so much more. If you’re in the mood for something a little more healthy to top your creamy cold treat, they also have an array of fresh fruit to top it off. At $.49/ounce, you can’t beat it!

Every item I’ve tried on the menu has been nothing but stellar. You can tell that a lot of hard work has gone into developing these recipes.
So do yourself and your taste buds a favor and check it out!

Coming up this weekend is something very exciting, that you won’t want to miss. Toyota’s Farm to Table Tour is gracing Jacksonville with its presence at the Riverside Arts Market on Saturday. (10-4pm on Riverside Ave. under the 95 overpass) This tour celebrates the connection between local ingredients and cooks. Several Jacksonville restaurants will be setting up shop, handing out samples of their fare, as well as free herbs and test drives from Toyota. The tastings will be held between 10:30am – 2:30pm and are sure to be incredibly delicious, on top of the rest of the Ram events!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2009
GOING BACK FOR SECONDS!

Select Restaurants Extend Downtown Dining Week

WHAT: Due to popular demand, the Downtown dining week, Eat Up Downtown, has been extended at select restaurants. The length of promotion varies by restaurant. Seven of the 19 restaurants will continue to offer delicious three-course dinner menus for just $25 per person. There are no coupons to clip or tickets to buy, simply view the menus at eatupdowntown.com, and make reservations with the restaurant of your choice.

WHO/WHERE:

bb’s 306-0100 (Until August 30th)

Chew Restaurant 355-3793 (Until August 29th)

Koja Sushi 350-9911 (Until August 30th)

Morton’s The Steak House 399-3933 (Until August 27th)

River City Brewing Company 398-2299 (Until September 12th)

Vito’s Italian Café 355-0064 (Until August 30th)

Wine Cellar 398-8989 (Until August 30th)

WHEN: August 24, 2009 – varies by restaurant (see above for end dates for each restaurant)
COST: $25 per person for a three-course meal, tax and gratuity not included
PARTNERS: Jacksonville Magazine and Talk Radio WOKV

MORE INFORMATION & MENUS: Visit www.eatupdowntown.com or call (904) 451-3344.

[About Downtown Vision
Downtown Vision, Inc. (DVI), Downtown Jacksonville’s Improvement District, is a not-for-profit 501(c)6 organization whose mission is to build and maintain a healthy and vibrant Downtown community and to promote Downtown as an exciting place to live, work, play, and visit.

Founded in 2000, DVI is dedicated to promoting the Downtown area, building a neighborhood Downtown, serving as a one-stop shop for information on Downtown and advocating the interests of local businesses and property owners. For more information, visit www.downtownjacksonville.org or DTJax.org on a mobile device.]

Working in the Westside gives me good options for dining out over my lunch break, but I always yearn for something new. One cannot live solely on Moon River’s delicious pizza. A coworker had tried out the Pickled Pear and gave rave reviews, so I decided to try it last week. They offer specials daily, including a quiche, sandwich, salad, and more entree style dish. The special that day was Charleston Shrimp and Grits for about $10., and the sandwich special was Roast Beef for about $6.

I decided on “The Smokin’ Granny” sandwich. This entailed turkey, thinly sliced granny smith apples, cheddar, and a tangy deli or coarse mustard inside cinnamon raisin bread. The sandwich was pressed and served with your choice of side. I chose the Mediterranean pasta salad over the pesto pasta salad and chips. The sandwich itself was warm, the bread was toasted from the panini press, and it was definitely a winner. The thinly sliced apples gave a perfect crunch and lightness to the cheddar and turkey. For a $7, the amount of turkey was very generous. The Mediterranean pasta salad was also very tasty. Multi-colored rotini pasta, feta cheese, red peppers, and cucumbers mixed together with a vinaigrette made it flavorful but light. The pasta wasn’t bland and was perfectly cooked.This sandwich has become my new favorite for lunch and I will definitely be going back soon.

My coworker had the spicy chicken wrap. This was a tortilla stuffed with lettuce, red peppers, cheese, chicken, and a sauce that she claimed “wasn’t spicy at all.” It was a little less than stellar, and very messy from the running red sauce inside. She also had the pesto pasta salad, which was penne mixed with pine nuts and peas, and it was also not as good as my selections. At the end of our meals, and my elated mood from my lunch, she commented that our next trip to the Pickled Pear would be for my sandwich.

Along with lunch offerings, they have fresh pastries including lemon bars, butter cake, miniature red velvet cupcakes and so many more. They also had a cold case of savory offerings to take home, ranging from salad dressings to pasta salads.

Overall, we would both go back to the Pickled Pear, and are anxious to try some more of their specials and different offerings. You can find the Pickled Pear Cafe at 1143 Edgewood Ave.  in Murray Hill, about a block away from Moon River Pizza.

In one of these podcasts, author and former FDA Commissioner David Kessler has some interesting things to say about why we as a society overeat, how chemicals play a huge part in many of the foods we eat (processed foods of course), and opens the can of worms on all these things we call “food” but really are just highly processed edible things, or fat.

“Pick an appetizer. What’s in Buffalo wings? You start with the fatty part of the chicken. Many times it’s fried in the manufacturing plant first. It’s fried again in the restaurant. That red sauce? Sugar and fat. That creamy sauce? Fat and salt. So what are we eating? Fat on fat on fat on sugar on fat and salt.” – David Kessler

Next up was salad and another new appetizer to try. I had a yellow and red beet salad with bibb lettuce. The beets were deliciously earthy and complimented with orange segments and ricotta salata. I can’t begin to explain my love for beets. I could eat them any day and surprisingly enough hated beets for the first 22 years of my life. The salad was refreshing and light, perfect for summer.
The new appetizer we tried was an eggplant and goat cheese terrine. This was served warm, topped with roasted red peppers, and served with toasted foccaccia. The eggplant was thinly sliced and appeared to be grilled, layered with creamy goat cheese. It was amazing and devoured quickly. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed both dishes and onto the entrees we went.

I had a grilled pork tenderloin with creamy polenta, grillen spring onions, and topped with some rather delicious rosemary-roasted apples. My pork was cooked perfectly to medium. It was moist, flavorful, and was exquisite with the rest of the dish. The creaminess of the polenta paired well with the crisp apples and tender pork. The spring onions were the perfect finishing touch. It was also a perfect summer meal, not heavy or overly filling.
Another hit amongst the family was the Seared Salmon with pearl pasta, asparagus, sugar snaps, roasted fennel, and tzatziki sauce. While I prefer other fish to salmon, the tangy and light tzatziki was a great high note for the fish. The vegetables were perfectly cooked and the pearl pasta didn’t leave you feelng bogged down or make the dish heavy.

When I think of summer, I think of grilling, farmers markets, and the hot (almost unbearbly humid) months Florida graces us with every year. The summer menu at Bistro Aix is full of new, enticing dishes that will tantalize your eyes as much as your palate.

Overall the meal was decent, and we would both go back again. I would definitely like to try something different and see how their curries hold up. The plus side was that their wine list looked good, and the ambience is inviting. The down side, was the food was only ‘good’ and not stellar.

While I cannot have locally grown produce delivered to my door, I do frequent the Riverside Arts Market. If you haven’t been out on a Saturday yet, GO! I try to make it out every other week. The produce is delicious and cheap, and last trip I walked away with a half flat of strawberries, and a reusable publix bag chock full of assorted veggies for $12. I’m eager to make it out when the Sweet Grass Dairy folks are there. I’ve heard their cheeses are quite delicious!
My only hope for the RAM is that the arts and crafts side of things picks up a little more. I’ve seen few visual artists and mostly jewelry and other housewares. Check it out every Saturday under the I-95 overpass on Riverside Ave. 10-4pm!

In other news, I had my first experience at O’Brother’s in Five Points, and another delightful trip down to Bistro Aix last weekend. I have to say, I was disappointed in O’Brother’s and doubt I’ll return any time soon. My partner had a Blue Moon (overpriced for a $5 pint) and we started with the tomato bisque and then Fish and Chips.
The tomato bisque was rather delicious. On the menu, it boasts a “mini grilled cheese sandwich” on the side. This ended up being a small wedge of a grilled cheese, which was good enough but more like a suggestion of a grilled cheese. We both enjoyed the bisque and thought it was well seasoned.
For the fish and chips, the fish was Icelandic cod. It was tasty but the batter could have definitely been better. Also not crispy and a pretty lackluster batter, a good beer batter would’ve done wonders. The chips were good but under seasoned wedges of potato that should have been cooked a little longer. I like my chips crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and these were anything but crispy. The portion was enough for us both to feel satisfied, and I did enjoy the coconut curry sauce that accompanied the dish. For $13, I expected a little more than what was offered. We sat inside by the bar, and our service was sub-par. Our server was fairly attentive, but when the bill came she gave a fit and lied to our face about splitting the bill.
As two people who’ve worked in the food industry for quite some time, we knew the system by the ticket print out. Tip: Don’t lie to someone and say you can’t split a check, and definitely don’t talk about a customer to another bartender in front of the customer. The other bartender blatantly stared at us, and I could see our server gabbing away throwing a miniature tantrum.
I wanted to like O’Brother’s. The menu looks inviting and delicious, but it failed to live up to my hopes.

next post will be the trip to Bistro Aix on San Marco Blvd. which was nothing but stellar and incredibly delicious!