I just had dinner at Capt. Brien’s in Marco Island on this balmy day in a plaza at Winterberry & S. Collier Blvd., where there’s many good bars and eateries. I was ready to walk up the beach since it’s almost sunset, but the drizzle of rain ended that thought and I’ll be back. It’s Feb 9th, and I spent a stupendous time on the beach at sunrise. I was just going for a short walk, then to get supplies, and return to my camp at Bear Island in Big Cypress National Preserve (
www.nps.gov/bicy) in the Everglades 30 miles north of Everglades City, but all those conch shells needed to be picked up and the pieces of nautical plants I gathered will make great decorations for the interior of my nest, a Capri Rodeo slide in camper. Yeah, they’re the same conch (actually welks) that you get in fritters and chowder and here they are free for the taking. Someone told me you’re not supposed to collect the live shells. They didn’t know my motive, so I told them “you can if you’re going to eat them!” They weren’t sure what to make of that. It was strange to them, but not to me. I’ll steam and freeze them and use them as a prime ingredient in my meals next week at my campsite. You can collect lots of oysters in the Marco River just north of the Goodland Bridge, too. Very tasty! Also, take the time to take a leisurely stroll across the bridge and take a good look at the water beneath. You may see dolphins, manatees and/or schools of sting rays, plus there’s a myriad of birds feeding if it’s low tide. Someday I’m going to learn what plants that grow in the everglades are edible. I’m sure there’s some that could compliment the conch and oysters.
After dinner I moved to Rookie’s, a great sports bar that shows the Terps basketball games since the manager is from Bethany Beach. I had Cap’t Briens broiled seafood platter for supper with a big piece of cobia (a very flavorful local fish), shrimp, scallops, and delicious baked potato. The baked potato shouldn’t be the highlight of the meal, but it was. I asked for the seafood to be cooked as if it was a rare steak, but it didn’t take. Was the seafood bad tasting? No. If it was less cooked, it would’ve been better, though. Most seafood flavor is very delicate and lost to extreme heat or frying. Light broiling is the way I like it. I’m not familiar with cobia. It must a big fish, like a Sea Bass. It was very tasty and flavorful like Blue Fish. The crab cake was mystery meat. No one outside of the Chesapeake Bay area has any idea what a crab cake is supposed to taste like or be made from. Don’t ever put onions in it or so much cracker crumbs or other filler that the crabmeat gets lost. Of course, I make the best ones. Mine are 95 percent crabmeat with a table spoon of mayonnaise, an egg, some diced green pepper, a couple dashes of Worcestershire Sauce, and my own spice mix, which is similar to Old Bay without the salt. No other ingredients belong in a crabcake. If there is, as far as I’m concerned, it has to be called something else and, of course, they are always broiled, not fried!
There’s also a Mexican Restaurant, Nacho Pete’s, that has a wet burrito, that’s a pound of cheesy, beefy flavor with all the toppings, that makes a great way to start the day, especially with the $1 ACBs and DaVinci’s is on the corner. Their website calls it Ristorante DaVinci fine Italian dining, but tucked away on the side is a laid back little bar, where all the menu items are available, excluding the fine dining formalities and dress up, etc. I had the bouillabaisse, a hard menu item to find, a tremendous meal of seafood stew full of shell fish, fin fish, shrimp, and the more local fresh seafood the better. DaVinci’s was as good as it gets. Just a short walk down the beach is Ne Ne’s Kitchen (297 N. Collier Blvd.) that looks like it was here when there were more mangroves and cypress trees than condos, cars, boats and people, famous for breakfast and lunch, but the food’s so good the customers demanded an evening meal be served, too. When I need a break from watching alligators, panthers, water moccasins, birds and being immersed in nature, Marco Island fills the bill and there’s no objection to me parking my nest overnight, but I always stop for a walk on the boardwalk that leads deep into the Fakahatchee Strand on US 41 midway between US Rt. 29 & Naples to check on the eagle’s nest and the pool at the end that always shows me something most people never see in a lifetime.
