Being new to Florida, we thought we would go to cool little festivals in this area. We read there was a very cool Stone Crab Festival in a little fishing town called Cortez.  Cortez is located on Sarasota Bay in Manatee County and it is one of the last remaining fishing villages on Florida’s southwest Gulf coast. It still has a working waterfront.

When we got there, we didn’t find many cars or people for that matter.  We walked into the Cortez Kitchen and asked the magic question, where is everybody?  We were a week late. Oh well, we might as well have lunch since we were there anyway.

 

The Cortez Kitchen is a wonderful little place where you sit on picnic tables and benches and have wonderfully fresh fish in paper dishes. You can get anything Grouper, fried grouper sandwich, blackened or grilled grouper sandwiches, or my very favorite bacon, lettuce, and grouper. They have lots of fish and shellfish (of course there is the famous stone crabs) to choose from and best of all, it is all so very fresh.

We shared an ahi roll for an appetizer. It wasn’t as good as a good Japanese restaurant but not because of the fish.  The ahi was excellent and we would get it again.

Mike had the stone crabs. He had the large ones and they were huge. Then we saw the bigger ones and they are tremendous. I wouldn’t want to come up against the real crab.

I had the royal red shrimp that was simply grilled with drawn butter. It was delicious as well.

We just loved the restaurant and would go back again when we just want to sit around and eat fresh fish.  We noticed the fish store right behind us. We got serious and decided to see what they have.

Cortez Bait and Fish Store is a pretty big complex.  They have amazing fish at amazing prices. We bought ahi that I would sear for dinner. It was just a beautiful piece of fish.  The proprietor was very helpful.

We noticed a number of egret or egret-like birds looking for handouts. They certainly didn’t look overfed especially because there are signs not to feed them. We did see one of them get a bite and was just enjoying it. They do hold their ground in spite of the signs.

It is too bad we aren’t closer because we would go there often but it isn’t far so we could get out there on our bikes. It is a new destination.

For those of you anywhere close to Cortez, by all means, go and visit and enjoy.