Fu Hing Seafood Restaurant

Lot's of restaurants claim authenticity and who are we to know any better? Even the most well-travelled among us haven't experienced enough of the world to be an expert on all flavors of cuisine. Even within a particular country or region the variation can range from subtle to immense such that something entirely new and unfamiliar can be the predominant style of an area close to another that you are intimately familiar with.

However, it is fair to call into question the authenticity of most fast food places with a foreign theme. Sure, the owners and workers at that Chinese restaurant you love so much are actually from China but what you are eating is actually an American born meal.

But, of course, there are the exceptions. This, my dear readers, is one of those legendary exceptions. One good look at the menu and you will have no doubt.

What you'll see before you looks like a regular "Chinese restaurant" menu. Same font, same colors, same layout, same dragons, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. You know there should be General Tso's chicken there and some sweet and sour pork over there somewhere. Oh, and over here I think is the house special fried rice. Right? You practically don't even need to read a menu like this. But please, take another look; a very close look.

Right there, right where it's supposed to say General Tso's chicken it actually reads "Goose Intestine w. Black Bean Sauce". How odd, let's look a few lines down for the Mu Shu Pork. No, there must be some mistake in the translation here because it says "Pork Blood w. Ginger and Scallion".

Jellyfish, frogs, turtles, fish head, fish belly, intestines, livers, stomach, blood, and tongue. These are but a few of the delicacies / oddities you can find at Fu Hing Seafood Restaurant. There are some quite appetizing sounding seafood dishes which, in typical Chinese restaurant fashion, are so plentiful in variation that picking one can give even the most decisive person a stress headache. As for the standard fare, due to popular demand they've added some Westernized Chinese dishes to a special supplementary menu but good luck ordering it. They don't understand English very well nor do they know what General Tso's chicken is (what is it anyway?) so you probably won't get what you're looking for.

Who wants to order that anyway? But if you're going the whole hog (literally or figuratively), be prepared wait. The authentic food takes a while. Sometimes forever.

Being among a few less adventurous types and some genuine Chinese people, I got a taste of both worlds. For starters I munched on some beef tongue, tendon, and pig ear. The beef tongue was absolutely delicious. I'm a fan of tongue's strong, "gamey" flavor and this was well cooked. The tendon was nicely sautéed with a teriyaki-ish sauce and has a texture I actually quite like. The pig ear, on the other hand, while not bad, definitely suffered from that dirty taste typical of pig skin. Still, quite a delicious and entirely unique appetizer.

While I waited for my fish (I was told it was going to be a whole fish; eyes, tail, and everything in between), I ate a bit of the fish head soup my Chinese friends ordered. As can be expected, it tasted quite fishy. It's common to find fish mixed with sour tasting spices in Asian countries, something that doesn't quite agree with the Western palate and I can't say I really enjoyed the soup all that much because of this. Sour fish, to my mind, screams bad fish. The soup also contained another lovely surprise: a thousand year egg. Now, it's not actually a thousand years old, but a thousand year egg is… well, let's take this one directly from Wikipedia:


Century egg, also known as preserved egg, hundred-year egg, thousand-year egg, and thousand-year-old egg, is a Chinese cuisine ingredient made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice hull for several weeks to several months, depending on the method of processing. After the process is completed, the yolk becomes a dark green, cream-like substance with a strong odor of sulphur and ammonia, while the white becomes a dark brown, transparent jelly with little flavor or taste.


Sounds delicious, right? Dump that thing in some sour fish soup and you have the perfect recipe for a mighty retch. The texture was very gelatinous, akin to the tendon from earlier, entirely unlike an egg ought to be.

After the soup I got some bad news. My fish wasn't coming out, something had gone wrong and it wasn't salvageable. This was almost two hours after I ordered it so, rather than wait another couple hours, I decided to clean up the chicken and broccoli my wife ordered, have another spoon full of sour fish soup, and a bite of the amazing lamb stew that was now steaming on the table. Very good stew, indeed. Despite the disappointment of not getting my food, it was still a good experience overall and I'm itching to go back again to try some more of the odd items on offer.

Just a word of caution: if you can, bring a translator. Seriously. We had one and it would have been nearly impossible without one. But if you want to try authentic Cantonese food in Jacksonville, you really only have one option.

PS. My sincerest apologies about the sub-par photographs. I left my camera at home and had to resort to using my iPhone for the pictures.

I did grab a copy of the menu while there, however, and have scanned it in for your viewing plesure:

menu outside
menu inside


Fu Hing Seafood Restaurant
10586 Old Saint Augustine Rd

Jacksonville, FL 32257
(904) 268-1953

Native Sun

A little while ago I got e-shouted at; not for something I said, but rather for an inexcusable omission. Admittedly, I deserved being reprimanded for making such an oversight, particularly considering the goal of this little weblog to aid in introducing Northeast Florida residents to the unique and interesting things their region has to offer.

In early January I posted an entry on the newly opened Whole Foods. Prior to that time I hadn't intended to include supermarkets in our online menagerie of local attractions, eateries, and other local-ish places of interest but this was a new breed of supermarket; a species of which Jacksonville had not yet seen.

So I was criticized by a friend for having covered Whole Foods while completely ignoring Jacksonville's very own, homegrown Native Sun. Ironically, I received the email upon returning from one of my regular shopping trips to their Baymeadows location and immediately begged for forgiveness, promising to rectify my error and give Native Sun the shout-out it deserves.

Aaron and Erica Gottlieb opened Native Sun in 1997 at their Mandarin location and have been one of the only providers of fresh organic produce and other healthy foods in the area. In mid-2006 they opened up a new store at the intersection of Baymeadows and 9A.

Fresh produce, packaged goods, coffee, grains, bread, frozen items, nutritional supplements, household supplies, beer, and more; there's precious little on your grocery list that you won't find here and anything missing will surely have a healthier substitute. There's also coffee/juice/smoothie bar and a deli providing healthy, fresh-made meals, snacks, and sides.

The extensive bulk food section is something I haven't really seen at other grocery stores and don't remember encountering at Whole Foods. You can buy grains, nuts, coffee, beans, dried fruits, mixes, etc., all by the pound. The prices are typically significantly lower than what you would pay for the same pre-packaged items and there's the added benefit of being able to purchase the exact quantity you need.

My most regular purchase, and I may give myself away to some of the employees who no doubt already think I'm strange enough, is the Ezekiel Bread (bread made from freshly sprouted organically grown grains). Being delicious, nutritious, and having a low glycemic index makes this my exclusive bread of choice. It's regularly rather expensive but Native Sun always has either the original or sesame seed variety on sale, thereby making themselves a crucial part of my grocery expeditions.

Recently the Baymeadows store has been serving brunch on Saturdays. For $6.99 you get a pound of food and there's plenty of variety to choose from. If that sounds a bit dear, please note that we left there completely stuffed and only packed away 1.1 lbs between us so it really is a great deal. I highly recommend the Tofu Scramble.

They offer the same setup for weekdays with a different cuisine being represented each day. The price during the week is $8.99 per pound except for Wednesdays when it drops down to $6.99. Check out the Hot Bar section of their website for more info. Looking over the menu and reminiscing about my Saturday brunch, I'm definitely making plans to sample some more of what they're dishing out.

So with all this praise and adulation, I think I can afford to step back and moan about one slight detail. There is one thing that has caused me to occasionally shake my fist in the general direction of Native Sun over the years and that, dear reader, is the puzzling fact that they are not open on Sundays. Sure, I should be able to work around this but when do I find myself wanting to go to Native Sun most often? Sunday. When is my "I can't believe I forgot to buy x" where x is a grocery available only at y and y, in this case, is Native Sun? Sunday. And I'm sure Sunday is grocery freak out day for many of you out there as well. And I'm sure that, if you don't already frequent Native Sun, you will on some future Sunday need to go there or perhaps even drive all the way to the store only to realize that they are closed for business on this one day of the week. C'est la vie. At least they don't close for two hours during lunch like the supermarkets in many parts of Europe.

And was I right to say that Whole Foods is unlike any supermarket in the area? Yes, and I still stand by that statement. Whole Foods is a glitzy, glamourous, new spectacle; a novelty in a way, playing up its deviation from the supermarket norm. Native Sun, on the other hand, is an unpretentious adherent to quality that values customer satisfaction over wow-factor.

Regardless, it's a great place with great food and they do their best to help their customers and work with the community. Support your local scene, maintain a healthy lifestyle, be all that you can be, and can you please pass me one more loaf of Ezekiel Bread? Thanks.

Native Sun
email: customerservice@nativesunjax.com
Native Sun Blog
@nativesunjax on Twitter

11030 Baymeadows Rd.
Jacksonville, FL 32256
904-260-2791

10000 San Jose Boulevard
Jacksonville, FL 32257
904-260-6950

Whole Foods

In case you haven't heard already, Jacksonville recently took a small step towards modernity with the opening of the region's very first Whole Foods.

A supermarket as a topic of interest? I know, I know, it does seem rather lame in a way but our local grocery stores have a lot of catching up to do in order match all that this place has to offer. Much of what's being peddled is fresh and of exemplary quality. There's also an incredible variety to be seen; a brisk walk past the cheese section will attest to that.

But beyond the produce and groceries, there's also a few other reasons to stop by if you're in the area. A gelato/coffee bar, a chocolate counter, and a healthy selection of wines and microbrew beers are there to help you satisfy all of your [legal] addictions. And for those too busy, lazy, or clumsy to took, there's a whole host of ready made meals and dishes.

Yes, it's a supermarket, but currently it's the most exciting one around.

Whole Foods
10601 San Jose Blvd
Jacksonville, FL 32257
904.288.1100

Tree Steak House

The majestic oak just outside this Mandarin restaurant may have something to do with the name and certainly adds favorably to the ambiance. Inside is a dimly lit waiting area, illumination provided by an overhead light made from deer antlers, relatives of the disembodied bucks looking out from the front wall.

The decor of the Tree Steak House lies somewhere in the intersection of cozy, disturbing, and outdated. Crossing the threshold is almost like stepping back a few decades to the smoke-filled, pea-soup colored rooms of post-war growth.

Tree is quite an expensive place with meals starting in the teens and steadily rising. Splitting plates will incur an eight dollar fee for an extra salad and side (which we would have liked to split as well). Our New York Strip was delicious and well cooked but the sides were anything but appealing. The mashed potatoes were bland and cold, the cheesy baked potato was topped with something akin to a Kraft single. Our waiter was friendly but somewhat inept as he additionally charged another person's meal to our credit card, a gaffe that was not caught until a couple days later and which took my wife over 20 minutes of her precious time to sort out with the manager who was reluctant to accept responsibility for the error (initially lying to cover it up) and instead thought that we should be bound to the payment.

Tree has good steaks and an interesting atmosphere. If you're looking for satisfaction in more than those two areas then I suggest you go elsewhere... I know we will.

Tree Steak House
11362 San Jose Blvd,
Jacksonville, FL 32223
904-262-0006

Clark's Fish Camp

Even stranger than the name implies, Clark's Fish Camp in Mandarin is the most interesting restaurant I've been to in Jacksonville on all levels: crazy decor, weird food, and more rednecks than you can pack into a monster truck show. To experience Clark's Fish Camp is to experience Southern eccentricity at its finest.

Packed with stuffed wild animals and surrounded by a swamp full of real live alligators, Clark's serves a horde of oddities including gator tail, turtle, frog legs, rabbit, ostrich, kangaroo, rattlesnake and more in addition to the large selection of seafood, steak, chicken dishes from one of the largest menus I've ever seen.

Being in an adventurous mood, we decided to try a couple of the "call of the wild appetizers." First up was the ostrich which looked and tasted quite a bit like steak but with a hint of turkey and a more robust flavor. Next we had the antelope which was a lot like a drier and saltier venison (but not in an unpleasant way). More details on the taste of the meat itself can be found over at Edible Oddities.

The place itself was packed but we had the foresight to call ahead which I would definitely advise for anybody wanting to go... and I do recommend you go. Despite the business, we were well taken care of and the staff was very friendly. Be advised, if taxidermy displays creep you out then this may not be the ideal restaurant for you... particularly since some of the patrons can be far more frightening. But if you enjoy a side of strangeness with your meal then you must go to Clark's as soon as possible... I wish somebody had told me about it sooner.

Clark's Fish Camp
12903 Hood Landing Road
Mandarin, FL 32258
904-268-FISH (3474)