Weekend in Mobile - Need Food/Dining Recs

Noble South
Dumbwaiter
Noja
OK Bicycle Shop (tacos)
5 Bar
Haberdasher (cocktail bar)
Chuck's Fish (Sushi upstairs)
Ruby Slipper (brunch)
Mediterranean Sandwich Company (Lunch)

Plenty of good options. Depends on what you're wanting and how much you're wanting to spend. Mobile's dining scene has come a LONG way over the last 10 years

Used to love kitchen on george. Hate they closed

Friends of mine really like The Hummingbird Way Oyster Bar. They eat there quite often.

LINK /

Friend,

It is a well known fact that I dislike Mobile perhaps more than any other city in America. It has all the problems of New Orleans without any of the good. It also was not the first place in America to celebrate Mardi Gras, although residents are quick to claim incorrectly that it was. That first happened on Bayou Mardi Gras just north of Venice.

Mobile, lacking in class, also lacks in a wide selection of food. Downtown is especially pathetic for restaurant choices. Wintzell's is popular downtown, but I have found the location near the Mobile airport to be superior for food. As the Airport Rd, one of America's ten worst roads, location lacks any semblance of atmosphere, I will say the downtown location has a little atmosphere. But don't expect a Mary Mahoney's, original Ralph & Kacoo's, Kenner Seafood, or even suburban Don's Seafood in terms of atmosphere. It's still Mobile, AL afterall.

One thing to remember at many Alabama restaurants today is that they add 2-3% to your bill total if you pay by credit card. On our adventures to Elberta and Auburn, Alabama, we found this impolite gesture to be the case.

The best fried seafood restaurant in Mobile is The Mariner on Dog River, perhaps five miles south of downtown. The inside is an absolute dump. There is a nice dining deck, however, and the fried crab claws will make you forget how nasty of an interior the building has. The Mariner's whole flounder was also exceptional, taking me back to the days of Brunings.

Although barbecue is one of the least desirable methods of cooking, a method which takes no skill, Mobile has a gem in Meat Boss. The Alabama white sauce there is good and I would recommend it.

The best restaurant in the city, bar none, is Osman's, which is in the middle of a run down neighborhood not terribly far from I-10, about ten minutes from downtown. It is reminiscent of the atmosphere in Crozier's and Chalet Brandt, almost certainly due to its owners, an immigrant husband-wife team, making you feel like you are at their home. It is a Bosnian restaurant with Germanic influences. Most German restaurants are not worth the calories, but Osman's is. The Jaegerschnitzel is the best in America. As you eat your salad -- I remember its dressing being a little too sweet for my tastes -- you will likely also hear the husband owner pounding away at your meat, flattening it in preparation for the fryer. Touches like this one leave an indelible mark in the memory. You may, like Mother, Uncle and I did, see Jeff Sessions eating there. He has decent taste in food, and he told us it was his favorite restaurant in Alabama. In my travels through that poverty-stricken state, I would agree with him.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

P.S. One thing I appreciate about the pizza scene in Mobile is that there is a Godfather's Pizza in which you can dine. It is not as good as the Godfather's of my youth, but it was heartwarming to get a sense of the past there.