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Saturday, January 24, 2015

2015 Florida Trip – Day 20 – Fisherman’s Village

During our South Florida stay, Pat and Bev had been over to Fisherman’s Village couple of times to shop and eat and they wanted to be sure I ate at the Village Fish Market before we left town.  Fisherman’s Village is a pretty good sized open air mall located beside the marina in Punta Gorda with the first floor lined with shops and restaurants and the second floor occupied by vacation villas.



The Village Fish Market bills itself as serving New England Style Seafood and the menu seemed to support that.  As I often do, when it’s available, I check out the online menu before heading to the restaurant and I often know what I plan to order when I leave home.


It was cool and cloudy so we chose to eat inside but were seated at a window-side table that had a nice view of the water.  This shot is from our table back toward the entrance.


After my home review of the menu, I noticed two things that were unique – Swai, which I had never heard of, and Smelts, which I had heard of but never eaten.  In order to try both, I ordered the fried Fisherman’s Platter with three items – Smelts, Swai, and Cod.


The Smelts are the little things in the middle and they had been cleaned and the heads removed – you just eat the whole thing.  Everything was good and I could tell little difference between the Swai and the Cod.  I thought the onion rings were very good and made sure I ate all of them.  I’m pretty sure everything we had was hand breaded at the restaurant and Bev thought her fried oysters were delicious as was her mac and cheese.

This was their third time to eat there and based upon my one trip, I would go back.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

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

Larry

1/15/15 event date

7 comments:

  1. I've never had smelts - they look good. I've gotten swai from Costco!

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  2. Larry, Never heard of Swai either... Looked them up and they're a catfish that looks a bit like a shark from the waterways of SE Asia. Interesting! As for smelt, they are a really big deal in the upper Midwest around the Great Lakes. They are good eating for sure! Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

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  3. That's a lot of food on your plate Larry. I've heard to Swai. It's sold in our grocery store in North Carolina. My only experience with smelts was when my MIL used to buy them for her cat. I believe several grocery stores carry them. Every since then I've wondered what they tasted like. Looks like a nice place and a good view of the water.
    Sam

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  4. I've seen Swai locally in Food City or Kroger - I think it is supposed to be just like some other fish but it is basically Asian farm raised catfish. I haven't bothered to look further into it since you know what I think of fish in general lol. But yeah, I'd eat a platter of those onion rings.

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  5. Lovely area! Whenever we are on Sanibel Island and we turn on the weather on TV - there is a local channel that has one of those computerized voices that says ... Punta Gorda ... so funny! Happy travels - bring some of that warm weather north with you please!

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  6. You are definitely enjoying your time. Checking out the local restaurants is what I love to do most.

    Have a great time!

    Velva

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  7. I somehow missed this post. It looks like a nice area. Man oh man would I eat all those onion rings too. One of my favorite foods and those look tasty!

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