Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Marco – Lunch at Triad Seafood Market & Café

This day we continued in our search of good restaurants in the Marco Island area in hopes of avoiding tourist food – mediocre food at high prices.  After reading the local guides, researching the on-line restaurant ratings, and talking with some locals, we decided to try the Triad in Everglades City, about a 30 mile drive from our resort. 

The Triad was pretty much a dive situated along the river next to commercial fishing boats – it is a seafood market after all. 

There appears to be a small commercial fishing business on the island and with all of the traps sitting around, I assume it’s mostly stone crab fishing.  From the following shots on either side of the Triad, I have to say that the fisherman don't run a particularly neat operation.




We looked over the Triad menu and found Stone Crabs were in season and for a mere $75 we could eat all we wanted, otherwise they’re about $4 each – I’m not really that fond of them anyway. 

So we looked over the menu and Pat ordered the fried Grouper Basket and Bev and I each had the fried Seafood Basket ($16), which had shrimp, oysters, clam strips, and grouper and sided with fries, a little slaw, and sauces.

I thought our seafood was very, very good - fresh and lightly breaded with Drakes, which I'd never heard of.  I loved the fries and the same type seem to be served around the area - they are super crispy as if they have a light breading on them. After a little questioning and research, I learned that they are Colossal Crispy fries from Lamb Weston.

If were just the food, this would have been a great dining experience and we would definitely go back, but the service was terrible, even though they had just a few customers - we may give them another chance next year.

We finished up the day with this sunset from the condo.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

11/17/13 event date

5 comments:

  1. Sometimes dives are just that - dives. But it shouldn't stop you from looking for that elusive "local" spot. My SIL is a local south Floridian and will not eat any kind of fish unless it's fried. From your choices, it looks like pretty much everything they had was fried, well except the stone crab of course. I wouldn't put it past a local to somehow figure out how to fry stone crab one of these days :)

    Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family Larry. I've enjoyed your trip to Marco and so glad we got to see y'all.
    Sam

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know, Larry, our biggest disappointment with living in Florida is that there are so few good places, if any, to find delicious seafood to either purchase and prepare at home or to eat in a restaurant. And in larger cities like Tampa and Orlando, it does not get any better. We have been very disappointed. Next week we try another one in Orlando. Will see. I feel Florida is really not offering seafood and here we are, almost entirely surrounded by the sea. Interesting. Happy Thanksgiving to you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Larry, Too bad about the service...but that fried seafood looked great! Laurie and I somehow missed this place the last time we went to Everglades City... Wishing you, Bev, Madison and Pat a terrific Thanksgiving! Take Care, Big Daddy Dave and Laurie

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is so hard to find good food in Florida. With the surroundings not looking very attractive and terrible service, I don't know if I would go a second time although I'm sure the seafood was nice and fresh. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Never heard of Drakes either but it sure looks crispy and golden. Too bad about their customer service. Sounds like they need that Restaurant Stakeout guy to come work on them :)

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate and enjoy your comments