Part of the blog’s latest disappearance can be attributed to getting passed over in the home run derby, and finally sneaking in a vacation during our wedding season all-star break. With an extended weekend trip to Pensacola Beach that included a really good ESB from the off-the-beaten-path Pensacola Bay Brewery, and a Gulf-front balcony right on the beach, as well as the best BBQ we have ever eaten at The Shed in Ocean Springs, we were finally able to relax and unwind- minus the 3rd degree sunburns.
Restaurants were limited, and making the trek from Pensacola Beach to Pensacola across the bay was restricted by a ½ gallon of rum, so we inadvertently broke the number one beach dining rule- Don’t eat at restaurants that sell t-shirts from an in-house gift shop. Most of these establishments on Pensacola Beach were more crowded than a post-Sunday School Cracker Barrel and the food was mediocre at best, but we did manage to stumble upon some decent food (parmesan crusted grouper) at a newly opened restaurant overlooking the Santa Rosa Sound, Grand Marlin.
When we did make it back to downtown Pensacola, we found some absurdly good grits topped with bacon, spinach, mushrooms, grilled shrimp, and sweet potato shoe string fries, as well as blackened cobia (there's a reason it's called lemonfish) while dining right next to the bay at Fish House.
The fuller’en hell feeling from endless crab claws and bottomless seafood nachos from Flounder’s only lasted so long, and our luck fishing at the pier was even shorter lived. So, once again, we found ourselves doing our part in financing the Pensacola Beach-Gulf Breeze bridge by running to Joe Patti’s Seafood. With an in-house sushi bar and stocked with more fresh fish, shellfish, and other mysterious seafood than the Santa Rosa Sound, this seafood market doubles as a mini theme park for foodies and, although you have to take a number from a secruity guard when you enter the market, is much easier than going to the DMV. We took a number and immediately had access to an affordable and extensive line of grouper filets, live clams, whole snapper, shrimp, scallops, and octopus (and, yes, that is a sleeveless shirt).
In addition to the fresh seafood, the market furnished us with every other ingredient we could have needed for almost any recipe, including fresh produce, a deli, a butcher, and multiple aisles of specialty oils and spices. Wanting to try something that neither of us had tried before, we decided on two large swordfish steaks. Although random, our North African-crawfish boil-fish camp menu of blackened Moroccan spiced swordfish with roasted corn tartar sauce, grilled asparagus, and lemon, roasted garlic, green onion, and smoked crawfish couscous came together pretty well on our Gulf-front balcony.
You’d think the massive consumption of seafood coupled with the rising temperature and glaring sun would have forced us to go into our customary coma, only to be revived by some girly salad or panty waist panini. And, if you’re thinking that, you definitely don’t know us. Our weekend getaway ended where it should have and very easily could have began, with the meatiest, greasiest, and most blissful of all fast food establishments- Five Guys Burgers and Fries.
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