America's Favorite Cities

[Metro Jacksonville]

America's Favorite Cities



Earlier this year, Travelandleisure.com and CNN Headline News polled travelers and residents on what they like (and don't like) about 25 top urban destinations in the U.S. Turns out that people have some pretty strong feelings about New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, and other hot spots.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/627

[Jason]

That's an interesting study.  I really like how there were so many different catagories for participants to give input on.  It really helps to better outline the pros and cons of these cities versus giving an overall ranking.

[Ocklawaha]

We have a Pizza Restaurant...

Ocklawaha

[thelakelander]

So what are we known for?  What's that special thing about Jax, that we do it our own way and it can't be duplicated elsewhere?  What will it take to take that unique (ex. is it the Camel Rider, Lubi, hybrid prairie school architectural style, etc.) feature and spin it in a way that will help our economy?

[fsujax]

How is BBQ in Austin any better than what you can get right here in Jacksonville??

[Ocklawaha]

I don't know about titles, but to me seems like home town Jacksonville is sort of:

NEO-Strip Plaza and Paper Mill-Hoboken Wharf-Classical Old South Splatter

Ocklawaha

[thelakelander]

How is BBQ in Austin any better than what you can get right here in Jacksonville??

I guess they specialize in Texas style BBQ.  Is there a unique Jacksonville way of cooking BBQ or making sauce that's different from places like Georgia, Memphis, North Carolina, Texas or St. Louis?

[thelakelander]

I don't know about titles, but to me seems like home town Jacksonville is sort of:

NEO-Strip Plaza and Paper Mill-Hoboken Wharf-Classical Old South Splatter

Ocklawaha

Interesting.  So let's say I'm looking for a spot to go on vacation and spend my hard earned money.  Strip plazas come a dime a dozen, paper mills are littered across the country, we tore down the wharfs and Hoboken's a lot more liberal/vibrant, so that leaves us with classical old south.  Since Savannah, Charleston and a host of other cities can lay claim to that as well, what's our hook?

[I-10east]

Before people get on this Jax bashfest, there are alotta cities that aren't mentioned on those lists like Charlotte, Tampa, and on, and on...I think that the cities that are known for a certain food are so overrated; Like a person from Brooklyn or Chi-Town can't relocate to Jax and open a New York, or Chicago Style pizza joint; They're out there. IMO Jax have a nice mix of alotta things; It's not top-heavy; Can it work on some things?... Yes, but it's not nearly the "barren desert of entertainment" that peeps wanna make it out to be.

[thelakelander]

Bashfest?  Just trying to figure out if Jax has something unique to it (ex. perhaps Mayport Shrimp?) that can be promoted in a better light for the good of the community.  For example, instead of hoping someone relocates from Chicago to open a "Chicago Style" pizza joint, why can't we have a "JACKSONVILLE" style.  We're an old community so there has to be something out there that's specific to our community that we can take advantage of. 

[fsujax]

I guess they specialize in Texas style BBQ.  Is there a unique Jacksonville way of cooking BBQ or making sauce that's different from places like Georgia, Memphis, North Carolina, Texas or St. Louis?

I don't know what Jenkins uses, but it is good, I know its a mustard based sauce. Don't know how popular that is anywhere else.

[thelakelander]

Yes, Jenkins' sauce is mustard based and pretty good.  Most will say this sauce is based out of South Carolina, however the "Low Country" is a region that stretches from Southern South Carolina to Jacksonville.

The U.S. has a wide variety of differing barbecue sauce tastes:

Memphis - The center of Southern pork barbecue, Memphis sauces occupy the middle ground between other styles. Based on tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar and spices, but not too thick, these blends provide moderate amounts of sweet, heat, and tang, with a lot of flavor.[8][9]
 
Kansas City – thick, reddish-brown, tomato-based with molasses[10]

St. Louis – generally tomato-based, thinned with vinegar, sweet and spicy; it is not as sweet and thick as Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, nor as spicy-hot and thin as Texas-style

North Carolina – three major types corresponding to region: Eastern (vinegar with pepper flakes), Piedmont (tomato-based with vinegar), and Western (tomato-based and thicker) 

South Carolina – mustard-based (central, Low Country regions of state), vinegar and black pepper (Pee Dee region), light or thick tomato (Upstate region)[11]

Alabama – vinegar and pepper base in the northern counties; tomato/ketchup base with Mediterranean influences in the Birmingham area; sharper, unsweetened tomato/vinegar blend in the western counties around Tuscaloosa; mustard-based in the Chattahoochee River valley in the eastern part of the state; a special white mayonnaise and black pepper-based sauce is used on chicken in the area around Decatur

Georgia – much of the state favors a ketchup base flavored with the likes of garlic, onion, black pepper, brown sugar, and occasionally bourbon; South Carolina-like mustard sauce found in areas around Savannah and Columbus

Arkansas – thin vinegar and tomato base, spiced with pepper and slightly sweetened by molasses

Texas – tomato-based with hot chiles, cumin, less sweet.

[Ocklawaha]

Barbados sugar –  muscovado sugar - brown sugar – castor/caster sugar – coarse sugar – confectioners’ sugar – date sugar – demerara sugar – granulated sugar – sugar cubes – invert sugar - Honey - corn syrup - golden syrup - glucose - Muscovado sugar – powdered sugar – raw sugar – superfine sugar – Turbinado sugar

Jacksonville DOES have a taste!

Ocklawaha

[Skot David Wilson]

You forgot SweetBreath. You can smell it outside of any store where some homeless person comes up and asks you for money.......
I think there should be an index of bail bondsmen, pawn shops, used car dealers, check cashers, and blood banks to determine quality of life for an area.
Let's add that to the demographic indexes and see where Jax falls in!
I still can't find a kinish, decent sub, or a kaiser worth a damn......
but I am comforted by the wide range of toothless crack whores, interesting assortment of goods seen being pushed around in shopping carts, and the soothing sound of gunfire and sirens at night...
Maybe I can make my nose brown, befriend the mayor and the Harden style crew, take some graft and live in a gated community, and stay in the "safe zones" they made for themselves, just like South Africa did under aparthide?
Then I can eat at corporate "knock-off" of good cusine....

[Ocklawaha]

That was a very funny post Skot. Flash backs of my wild days in the Colombian Civil War back in the 1980's. I had only been "Married into Colombia" for a short time, till we headed South to meet the family. Good wife always said her family was, shall we say, well placed. When we got there, my eye's were open to a whole new World. Even though we had traveled throughout South America, I was in for CULTURE SHOCK! The shock? We don't have "culture" in the USA! OMG!!

Sadly at that time, Cuban and their drug buddies were still trying to toss out the oldest democracy in the hemisphere. We had to park at the curb in Bogota and got evacuated by the military, telling us to bug out because the Communista's were coming! (They didn't need to beg us) They were launching heavy artillery off the nearby mountains and mounted a bloody attack on the Supreme Court. "Safely" back in Medellin, we entered the lower floor of the high-rise condo. The lower floors are parking and the only windowless entry at street level is into a guarded security cubical. We entered to see the police at the desk were reading the funny pages of the local paper. As the door closed behind us, we heard a car tires squeal on the pavement outside, then the sound of AK-47 gun fire. That distinct AKK AKK sound! Then finally one of the police got up disgusted and tossed his paper down. He leaned out the door,  took one look and sat back down with his paper. My wife asked him "Que pasa?"

He just shrugs and says: "Un arepa menos!"
For us Gringos, it translates "One biscuit less" (to worry about...implied)

But that wasn't even the biggest shock, then I came home to JACKSONVILLE after 27 years! Do we even have the biscuit???

Ocklawaha