Jeez…I am so overdo for a post once again. I am going to make an effort to post at least once a week. I don’t think that is too much to ask of myself. Obviously, I would like to post even more but, I normally just don’t have the time.

So this past weekend we went to the Everglades Seafood Festival. The Seafood Festival is a yearly tradition for the town of Everglades City, FL. We arrived at around 10:30am and avoided all the traffic to arrive and park. We walked around the festival, which was set up in rows of food and arts/crafts, and get acclimated. There were a lot of people there when we arrived. We walked around browsing for a while and went to eat at around 11:50am. And I barely took any food pictures!

The first thing we decided to try was the Coconut Shrimp. We saw them as we were walking around and they looked great. There were 4 huge shrimp on a skewer and they were served with a marmalade dipping sauce. I fought my way to the line and purchased one skewer, 4 shrimp, for $12. Overpriced? I think so. There were 4 of us eating together at this point (My Mom, Brother and our Friend). We each had one shrimp and no one was impressed. Yes, they looked great but no, they weren’t that great tasting. There was way too much breading and the shrimp was lacking in flavor. The dipping sauce was decent but certainly not $12 worth. Overall rating: 3/10.

Next, we tried the Conch Fritters. I am a huge conch fritter fan. I love conch. I was super excited when I saw a booth selling these so we went and got some. For $10 we received 8 huge fritters, tartar sauce and cocktail sauce. The fritters were huge. They were nice and hot and full of conch. The batter had a great taste as well. The cocktail sauce was just basic cocktail sauce and I did not try the tartar sauce. The taste of the fritters was so good that you really did not need any dipping sauce. I thought these were a great value for the money and did not disappoint. Overall rating: 9/10.

Our next trial was Crab Cakes and Fresh Cut Fries. I got a large crab cake served with fries and a side of fries for $10. Price wise, was a good deal. Taste wise, no way. The crab cake looked good on the outside. I broke a piece off and saw that it was very dry. I then ate the bite and the taste was not good at all. It tasted like fake imitation crab. There was no good flavor whatsoever and the cake was more definitely overcooked. I was really disappointed by this because I really like crab cakes. I even tried to dip it in the coconut shrimp taste and that did not help either. The fresh cut fries tasted like they had been sitting out for a while. They were way too greasy and lacking flavor. I’m glad we got all of this for $10 because if it would have cost any more, I would have been even more disappointed. Overall rating of the crab cake: 1/10. Overall rating of the French fries: 5/10.

Next to eat was an Indian Burger. I had never had an Indian Burger before the Seafood Festival and was excited to try it. One of our friends, Stacy, loves this burger and says it’s the one thing you must get! The Indian Burger is a piece of Indian bread filled with ground beef, lettuce, cheese and tomatoes. The Indian bread is fried and not too thick. It has the perfect flavor of sweetness in it. The bread is what makes the burger. The burger was $9 and was quite large. It was made to order and was very hot when we sat down to eat it. The combination of the flavors was great. The Indian Burger was wonderful. All of the ingredients were fresh and tasted lovely. After eating this burger, I definitely could have had another and I would have loved to have tried the Indian bread all on its own. Overall rating: 10/10.

Decided that it was time to get some Deep Fried Oreos at our next stop. We went to a BBQ Festival last month and had deep fried Oreos for the first time. Amazing. Plain and simple. I was really looking forward to having some more. I got 6 Deep Fried Oreos for $5. They came in a bag covered with powdered sugar. They were very, very hot when we got them and had to wait a little bit to eat them. Once they cooled off, I dug in. They were very good. There was a lot of powdered sugar on them which made them a bit messy. These were not quite as good as the ones we had at the BBQ Festival but they were still quite yummy. I think the difference was the Oreos at the BBQ Festival were in the freezer whereas these were just room temperature. Still quite yummy but, I did not want another serving of them after I ate them. (At the BBQ fest, I just wanted more and more and more). Overall rating: 9/10.

There were multiple booths selling Fresh Squeezed Lemonade but I selected a booth I have had from before. The couple are local to the SWFL area and serve their lemonade out of a lemon shaped stand. For $3 I got a 22oz cup of fresh squeezed lemonade, with half a squeezed out lemon inside. The first sip was very refreshing and tart. I love my lemonade tart. The entire glass was quite refreshing and delicious. I got one sip at the end that tasted like it was all sugar, but the rest was great. A little bit overpriced for the actual amount you get but, still good. Overall rating: 8/10.

That was all the eating I did at the Seafood Festival. Taylor and Rich also got a Frozen Key Lime Pie Covered in Chocolate but, I did not have any. I really had a great time at the Festival and can’t wait to go back next year. There was a lot to look at and a lot of really cool vendors. We stayed until about 4:45pm. The day was perfect…sunny and a nice breeze. I will certainly be having an Indian Burger again next year. Hopefully there will be even more new choices and things to try. Can’t wait.