Going Coastal in Mobile

Because Wro loves costume parties, he had been suggesting we visit the Carnival city of Mobile, Alabama for a long time. He finally convinced me with a photograph of a restaurant sign there - “Happy Hour Oysters 25 cents.”

True Love

It took all day to fly there commercially so we were famished when we arrived. Fortunately, Wro made reservations at Wesley True’s place - True. Wesley is a Mobile home boy who spent a decade sharpening his knives in cutting edge cafés like Oxford, Mississippi’s City Grocery and Manhattan’s Danube, Bouley, Mesa Grill, Gordon Ramsey’s, Public and Aquavit. After that Wesley called his daddy in Mobile and asked if he thought the old home town was ready for a culinary bump-up.

Daddy Rick met us for dinner and said he built the restaurant in 40 days - I guess he didn’t waste anytime thinking about the answer to his son’s question. He also said he knew Wesley had some culinary talent when, years before he had any training, he threw out the salsa and chips his father had purchased for a family reunion and made both from scratch with fresh ingredients.

Mobile is a traditional food town and Wesley doesn’t rock the boat too much. You can find down home favorites like shrimps & grits or speckled trout with conecuh sausage on the menu, along with filet mignon. His wine cellar covers a wide spectrum. He also offers a tasting menu, by reservation only, that allows guests to enjoy what he learned working with guys like Marcus Samuelson, John Currence, David Bouley and Brad Farmerie.
Ours began with a poached shrimp, oysters and caviar appetizer plated with cauliflower root chantilly and celery sea foam doused in chllied dashi and shrimp broth. This was a marvelous entry level offering, for both the dinner and those wetting their feet in the waters of contemporary cuisine. Tastes and essences were reconstructed but without altering one’s expectations. A shrimp was still a shrimp.

Wro and I had oysters on our mind so we applauded Wesley’s oysters three ways: with celery sea foam and yuzu gelee; with Bloody Mary sorbet; and with beet mignonette. Our next course presented divine local snapper, skin-on and too fresh to be out of the water after dark. He was served with braised artichokes, Meyer lemon confit, bacon veloute and home made black truffle, which our waiter applied tableside from a French coffee press.

Next up was a roast duck breast, flavored with saffron, served on a coconut reduction and plated with pineapple, a pine nut puree and vanilla-pickled chili salad. Good dancing partners.

True’s pastry chef Kaylan Roma then presented a strawberry trio: a consommé, with pistacchio ice cream; and as a cream whipped with brandy. Her second dessert course brought a chocolate fondant cake with a cocoa nib tuille, vanilla bean ice cream and raspberries.

Having multiple desserts always helps me sleep. We checked into our room at the Marriott Riverfront and slept like oysters in a bay.

Historic Mobile

Mobile is a dream destination for little boys, not just the ones who like to play dress up and dine in fine restaurants. The town’s history is filled with pirates, war heroes and baseball superstars. We began our first full day at the 1857 (some say 1856) National Landmark building that had served as both the Southern Market and the Old City Hall. Our docent told us that it was also a slave market until 1860.

Mobile is America’s original melting pots. Six flags have flown over the city - French, Spanish, British, Alabama, the Confederacy and the USA. The Native Americans who preceded them all didn’t fly flags. Unlike most of Mobile, we were told that the Southern Market was always integrated for both vendors and shoppers. One display interested Wro, who often thinks he is Irish. It showed how cotton was loaded for market in 500 pound bales moved on steep chutes. Slaves worked the top of the chutes and Irish laborers the bottoms because “Slaves were worth far more than Irishmen.”

We learned in another display that Mobile probably produced more great baseball players per capita than any American city - Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Satchel Paige, Ozzie Smith, Willie McCovey, Amos Otis, Milt & Frank Bolling and Eddie Stankey - all home town products. The original pro team here was named the Iron Acid Earth BB Club. We tried in vain to purchase T shirts with their logo - Wro reasoned that it’s probably been trademarked by a rock band.

A temporary exhibit celebrated pirates. Among the trivia gleaned there: Mobile’s founder was a pirate named Iberville; The pirate Laurens de Graaf was a mulatto freelancer who always employed musicians on his ship; John Lambert was the cruelest of the pirates of the Caribbean, he retired to Mobile and opened a butcher shop where he once nailed a worker to the wall by his ears; A Civil War superhero named Rafael Semmes resembled the fictional Rhett Butler in many ways. During the Civil War, he captured 64 Union vessels. On our visit, he captured Wro’s heart.

We learned a lot about Mobile’s cast iron industry, which built the lovely grills and lattices one associates with the French Quarter of New Orleans. Much of Mobile’s finest work was melted down for the WWII effort and the industry never recovered.

Mobile languished after the Civil War until WWII, when the ship building industry led an exponential population growth. Ship builders like Ostral still lead the local economy as was apparent from our hotel room window.

A block from the museum Wro found the French Fort Condé which protected Mobile from pirates, Brits and Spaniards from 1723-1820. The current Fort Condé, about a third the size of the original fort, is recreated in 4/5 scale, and opened in 1976 as part of Mobile’s United States bicentennial celebration.

MS Holiday - One Huge Kitchen

We crossed the street and boarded the MS Holiday of Carnival Cruise Lines for a Bon Voyage tour of the ship. Wro and I met the galley steward who told us about planning for 12,000 meals a day for two weeks! Yikes, we complain about how hard it is to plan a one-time cooking show and dinner for 100 people.

The food & beverage manager on this ship shops for 8000 pounds of beef, 5000 pounds of seafood, 3000 pounds of pork, 7500 pounds of fruit and vegetables, 4500 pounds of flour, 1400 pounds of sugar, 600 gallons of ice cream, 900 gallons of juice, 12,000 gallons of milk and 3600 eggs. That’s his shopping list when they dock in Mobile.

While touring the ship’s lounges we learned that some specialize in weddings, others in renewal vows and others in karaoke. We were told that each week, the ship’s guests drink 16,000 soft drinks, 20.950 beers, 4000 bottle of wine and about 3000 liters of booze. I was sort of relieved that we were only staying for lunch.

We helped the food & beverage manager make room in his kitchen by consuming: crab cakes on a cured cucumber salad; a course of spaghetti with stewed eggplants and fresh mozzarella; charred strip loin of beef with heavenly truffled mac & cheese; cured tomato and broccoli Provencal; a salmon medallion with baby shrimp and lemon artichoke essence; and chocolate cake with ice cream. All were served on a lavish linen and silver-set table with impeccable service.

Mardi Gras Museum & Joe Cain Lore

After lunch we paraded to the Mardi Gras Museum, to the tune of a song by Mobile native Jimmy Buffet about margaritas. That museum parties-on in an old funeral parlor - not a typical party atmosphere but Mobile is not a typical party town. We learned that Mobile’s Mardi Gras differs from New Orleans. The queens’ trains are so heavy here that they require ball bearings. I am not making that up! The trains are made new each year - a ninth month process which has created a local industry. Wro asked what it takes to become a queen. Our docent explained that “the queen must not be a nerd. She represents the city.”

The super hero of Mobile’s party scene is Joe Cain (1832-1904). He revived Mardi Gras from the ashes of Reconstruction by appearing as Slacabamorinico, chief of the Chickasaw. Joe defiantly rode a coal wagon through the streets of town on Shrove Tuesday and the good times have been rolling ever more. In 1967, Joe’s grave was moved from Bayou La Batre to the Church Street Graveyard in downtown Mobile. A year later Joe Cain Day was proclaimed a holiday in Mobile. Today The Order of Joe Cain’s Merry Widows worship and mourn there. This being Mobile, they throw a party at his grave every year. Conversations, we were told, go like this:

“He loved me the most.”

“No you lying slut, he loved me more.”

BBQ and Science

Stories about slut fights in old funeral parlors always make us hungry. So we moved uptown and had a snack at Saucy-Q Bar BQ, a place that had been recommended to us by good authorities: 1.) our housekeeping staff; 2.) the hotel’s front desk; and 3.) a full crew of city workers.

The Elbert Wingfield family has been running this barbecue and soul food joint, at different locations, since 1990. The insiders we talked to particularly recommended Elbert’s whole and half chickens. Thank you too much. We also tried his ribs, pork shoulders and sausage, plus some collard greens, red beans & rice, mac & cheese and a knuckle sandwich. Since this was only a snack, we split one dessert - a sweet potato pie.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center. The museum is designed with interactive exhibits which somehow made medical science interesting and fun for easily distracted boys like Wro. He actually learned a few things about his body in the interactive exhibit “My Body Works.” He even got to practice virtual open heart surgery. I learned that my blood pressure was high, duh.

Having explored five hundred years of history and party lore, plus a cruise ship, I was exhausted and decided to relax in our hotel all evening. That easy to do in any of the Marriott’s of Mobile which include three super properties: the historic Grand Hotel and Battle House; plus the modern Renaissance Riverfront. All have extensive collections of Alabama art, including folk art which appeals to us for its playful whimsy.

In the Harbor Room of the Renaissance Riverfront, we dined amidst several paintings by Nall, a legendary Alabama artist and gallery owner. Our maitre d’ pointed out that Nall likes to include male sex organs in every painting. After digesting that amusement, we munched on some veal meatballs on fresh greens and a two soups - a ginger shrimp bisque, which is a good idea, and a divine cream of cauliflower with Port drizzle, which is an even better idea.

Wro ordered angel hair pasta with white beans, dried tomatoes, spinach, garlic and truffled chevre. I seized a rare opportunity to try some Ashley Farm chicken. That North Carolina company is raising heritage breeds and other fowl that I heard about all the way out in Des Moines. I expected a small bird but my half chicken weighed over two pounds. Served with roast leeks and mashed potatoes, it was down home cooking, to the exponential factor.

Somehow we made room for dessert - doughnuts of cinnamon cake crumb with custard. We crawled back to the room while enjoying Alabama art along the way.

Damn the Torpedoes, Eat the Oysters

We began our third day by driving to Dauphin Island. Wro wanted to see Fort Gaines where Admiral Farragut ( "another hottie sailor") issued his famous command “Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead.” The island and the bay have changed more than the fort, which was designed short and squat, to hide from enemy ships. Ralph Oalmenn, a friendly soldier, explained that the fort was about 900 yards from the Gulf during the Civil War but it’s only 12 yards away now.

Ralph also showed us why the US Army used to require infantrymen to possess “two teeth that touched.” You needed them to load an Enfield musket. Among the other trivia we learned: The USS Alabama carried 600 pounds of gunpowder -- a broadside firing made the ship float sideways; Fort Gaines’ soldiers were poisoned to death by its cisterns which used oyster shells for filters. The shells acid leached lethal quantities of lead from the cistern lining.

At the nearby Estuarium at Dauphin Island Sea Laboratory, a former Air Force base has been converted into a K- 12 learning center owned by the Alabama Board of Education. They practice better environment methods than the fort did - permeable parking lots, for instance! Either Mobile or Seattle leads the nation every year in rainfall, so these are worth their cost, which right now is triple the cost of asphalt.

We learned about the famous “Jubilees” which occur when bottom feeding fish are thrust into shallow water by oxygen starvation which is caused by heavy rain pouring into the bay. Crab, shrimp, flounder, eels and other demersal fish thus become so easy to catch that huge crowds flock here at least once a year

Our docent told us what we began to suspect from the way Fort Gaines has gone coastal since the Civil War.

“Dauphin Island is the poster child for federal abuse of a natural barrier island.”

We learned that goats used to frolic here, climbing the hills to escape the alligators. Oyster reefs used to attract all kinds of turtles. The Estuarium is trying to rebuild the marsh with hope that the old denizens will return. Inside the facility we met some very good looking fellows: horse shoe crabs; giants snails and sport fin hogfish.

So far, it’s inconclusive if a man-made marsh can work. There’s lots of march grass growing but no shrimp yet.

Michael’s Downtown

Manmade marshes always make us hungry so we checked out Michael’s Downtown. Chef Michael Ivey has a quite a story. Twenty years ago he opened Michael’s Midtown where he put his own personal mark on southern cooking with lighter, Mediterranean touches like cooking collard greens in olive oil instead of lard and ham hocks.

Michael championed fresh & local food and slow food long before anyone here was using those terms. Then in 2000, he was diagnosed with hepatitis C and closed his bistro. While recuperating and waiting for a liver transplant, he cooked at a homeless shelter downtown. Things got worse and forced him to sell his home and spend his savings on day-to-day living. In 2007, Michael got a new liver and then remodeled an old building downtown. He serves a completely new menu daily, based on what’s fresh, local and sustainable.

In a party mood, Wro tried some crab macque choux (a corn chowder associated with Mardi Gras). I went with soft shell crab meuniere. Then we shared fresh gulf snapper with a fresh salsa, enchiladas of smoked duck in mole and a cheesecake with fresh strawberries. We should all cook like our health depended on the recipes!

Feeling healthy, we motored out to Mobile Bay’s landmark Bellingrath Gardens, 900 acres along the Fowl River where Bessie Bellingrath famously transformed her husband Walter’s fishing and hunting camp into a formal garden that could have pleased a French king. Bessie's 10,000 square foot home is furnished in antiques that made her the delight of dealers in New Orleans, where she was famous for paying top dollar. On our visit, people were celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the camellia becoming Alabama’s state flower, replacing the goldenrod.

Trellis Room

Camellia celebrations always make us hungry so we returned downtown to enjoy Mobile’s ultimate dining indulgence - the Trellis Room of the Battle House Hotel. Because Wro likes to play dress up, we first toured the hotel’s Crystal Room - the preferred site of debutante parties and Mardi Gras balls for over a hundred years.

Built on the site of Andrew Jackson’s headquarters in the War of 1812, Battle House history dates from 1852. Stephen Douglas was staying here the night he lost the Presidency to Abe Lincoln. Woodrow Wilson made his famous speech about the US never waging war again here. Today, a brand new skyscraper addition brings modern amenities to the hotel’s historic gravity. Adjoining the gorgeous lobby, the Trellis Room is all about tradition, with a barrel vaulted ceiling and a Tiffany glass skylight. Mr. George Moore greeted us with some stories from his half century of service there.

Chef Charles Meraday comes from Goldsboro, N.C. a town dear to our hearts. It’s the culinary center of Eastern Carolina and home to Wilber Shirley, the master smokehouse guru of pig country.

Charles had the good sense to bring some Carolina chickens to Alabama, the same Ashley Farms birds we enjoyed at Harbor Room. He searches the country for similar products of distinction.
We began dinner with an Alabama wild shrimp platter, served on risotto cakes with a tomato confit. Then we had some silver dollar crab cakes with roasted pepper relish in a Chianti reduction. We followed that with a little filet of real Kobe beef with braised shallots and thyme jus.
We moved into a second course of Caesar salad, with Parmesan crisps and a squash bisque with poached lobster tail and pumpkin seed oil. The "catch of the day" brought grouper with some mushroom risotto, spinach and white truffle oil.

That wasn’t Charles’ pairing, it was a special request of Wro’s, for bipolar bear reasons I think. I was impressed how cheerfully his whim was granted. I had filet of prime beef, because the Kobe appetizer was so good I still craved beef. This came with root vegetables and a potato gratin. We barely had room for desserts but we rallied because it was our last night in Alabama. We started with a cherry trio of a tart, ice cream and soup. Then we moved into the crème brulee phase of the evening, with vanilla bean version that paired well with roasted strawberry cheesecake.

Wro said that he dreamed that night about having his debutante ball in Crystal Room. I dreamed of cherry soup and dancing crab cakes.

We did a little shopping the next morning before heading to a Mobile landmark for the opening bell at Wintzell's.

Wintzell’s

Cigar chomping J. Oliver Wintzell opened the original Wintzell’s Oyster House. in 1938 as a six stool oyster bar. His family sold the place in 1980 but J. Oliver’s wall of home spun wisdom remains in tact.

Since J. Oliver’s time, the place has been known for oyster’s “fried, stewed or nude.” We started with two dozen naked ones - big old boys, Apalachiolas, the oyster that, legend has it, inspired the original Oysters Rockefeller (at Antoine’s in New Orleans for John D. Rockefeller). Personally, neither Wro nor I understand why anyone would cook fresh oysters when they taste so good raw. Big Joe Evans doesn’t understand either. He holds the record at Wintzell’s for eating 403 raw oysters in one hour. I fell short in my effort to get my name on the wall. Obviously, two dozen wasn’t enough, we doubled up. That was for starters.
Then we tried some West Indies salad - the recipe of which is so simple it only requires one sentence -

“Mix lump and claw crab meat in equal proportions, add chopped onions and marinate in red wine vinegar for 24 hours.”

An oyster sampler included three cooked versions of the specialty of the Bay. Gumbo delivered deep flavor and natural okra thickener.
For entrees we tried some fried Gulf shrimp and fried catfish, a compulsory part of southern dining. I remember eating some boiled red skin potatoes, sweet cole slaw and home made bread pudding. Those Apalachiolas have a way of making people forget about everything except them. Just ask Big Joe Evans.

When we checked in at the airport, we regretted that we had not also ordered the fried riblets and the banana pudding. As soon as we told the ticket agent we’d eaten at Wintzel's, she asked if we had enjoyed those two items. Now we have a new reason to come back to Mobile.

If you go

General information

www.mobilechamber.com

Hotels

Renaissance Riverfront Plaza, 64 South Water St., Mobile, AL 36602, 866-749-6073, http://www.pchresorts.com/

Grand Hotel Marriott Resort, One Grand Boulevard, P.O. Box 639 Point Clear, Alabama 36564 251-928-9201 www.pchresorts.com

Battle House, 26 N Royal St., Mobile, AL 36602, 251-338-2000, www.pchresorts.com

Attractions

Dauphin Island Sea Lab
101 Bienville Blvd
Dauphin Island, AL 36528
Phone: 251-861-2141
www.disl.org/

Fort Gaines
251/861-6992
51 Bienville Boulevard
Dauphin Island, Alabama 36528
www.dauphinisland.org/fort.htm

Bellingrath Gardens & Home, 12401 Bellingrath Gardens Road, ,Theodore, Alabama, 36582, 251.973.2217 www.bellingrath.org

Mardi Gras Museum, 355 Government St., Mobile, AL , 251-432-3324

Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center and IMAX Dome Theater, 65 Government St.,Mobile, AL 36602, www.exploreum.com

Carnival Cruise Line, 201 South Water St., Mobile, AL 36602, 888-744-7662, www.carnival.com

The Museum of Mobile
111 South Royal Street
P.O. Box 2068, Mobile, AL, 36602, 251-208-7569, www.museumofmobile.com

Fort Conde, 150 South Royal Street, Mobile, AL 36602, 251-208-7569, www.mobile.org/html/conde

Restaurants

True, 9 Du Rhu Drive, Mobile, AL, 251-344-3334, www.truedine.com

Michael's Downtown,101 N. Conception St., 251-473-5908

Wintzell’s,605 Dauphin St., Mobile, AL 36602, 251.432.4605, www.wintzellsoysterhouse.com

Saucy-Q Bar B Que, 1111 Government St, Mobile, AL 36604, 251-433-7427, http://saucyqbbq.com

Trellis Room at the Battle House, 26 N Royal St., Mobile, AL 36602, 251-338-2000, www.pchresorts.com

The Harbor Room, 64 South Water St., Mobile, AL 36602, 866-749-6073, http://www.pchresorts.com/