The St. Petersburg Pier is a wonderful place to visit. The offer great views of Tampa Bay. You can watch boats float around and people fishing from the pier.
There are several places to eat around the pier. I headed to Doc Fords for some fresh Florida seafood.
Doc Fords offers lots of seating options. You can sit inside or outside.
There is a huge aquarium right at the door when you walk in. If you are lucky, you can say hello to Nemo and Dory.
I sat outside on the patio to enjoy the fresh sea air.
I looked over their cocktail menu. I saw a Dirty Banana listed. I normally do not see this drink on menus. This is my go-to vacation drink when I travel to the islands. I wanted to make sure that I ordered one. If you have never had one, it is a blend of light rum, dark crème de cacao, banana puree, and a chocolate syrup drizzle. This is basically like an adult milk shake. The coolness of the drink was refreshing. The flavor of the banana and chocolate paired so well together. It really enjoyed tis drink.
One of the appetizers that came out was the Calamari. It was lightly breaded and fried. The calamari was tender. They served it with a homemade cocktail sauce.
Instead of the cocktail sauce, I used their three sauces that they had on the table. They were perfect on the calamari. They offered three different flavors:
Colombian Gold Pepper – This is a mango sauce with a mild, sweet heat
Chipotle Pepper – This has a smokey flavor with a mild heat
Amazon Sauce – This was made with habanero peppers and is very hot
Another appetizer was the Captiva Crab cakes. The jumbo lump crabmeat was pan fried so that a thin crispiness was on the outside. They served it with a jicama slaw. This is like a water chestnut. It added a nice crunch. They finished it off with a key lime butter sauce. The sauce made the crab cake delicious with a rich and creamy taste.
I ordered the Seafood Paella to share. I figured it would be a large dish that I could not eat all by myself. They loaded up with jumbo scallops, shrimp, mussels, and fish medallions. Their unique take was adding chorizo sausage. This added a little heat.
All the seafood was placed on top of tomatoes, peas, and saffron rice. The mussels, scallops, and shrimp really soaked up the flavor of the saffron. The fish medallions were flakey and tender. I ended up dipping the fish in the Colombian gold pepper sauce. I liked the sweetness of the sauce with the fish.
I also got to try the Panko Crusted Grouper. The grouper was pan-seared and served on a bed of brown rice. The grouper was flakey and moist. They also served julienned vegetables, spinach, and mushrooms. They topped everything with a honey papaya rum sauce. The tropical flavor of the papaya went perfectly with the grouper. It was not heavy although it was sweet. The spinach and mushrooms added an earthy flavor to the dish.
The food and views were amazing at Doc Fords. I was there during the week so there was no wait for a table. I can only imagine that this place is packed on the weekends.
Check them out at www.DocFords.com
Enjoy!
T
