As Key West gets more crowded with people determined to be drunk in public this week, a middle aged man's thoughts naturally turn to places far from home. Ah escape! Even from Paradise! No-especially from Paradise.
Diggy pestered me for another ride earlier this week and we took a few hours to rumble over the Seven Mile Bridge and check out another eatery. This one, like Burdines is on the water, only its on the north side of town, what Marathon residents call Gulf side (as opposed to Ocean side on the south side of Highway One). Diggy has only just had his eyes opened to the possibilities of fleeing his hometown from time to time and he's developing a taste for the wide world beyond Key West.
Keys Fisheries is the place one chooses if one is in the mood to get Fish. They have a massive menu, overdone in length, but they are well known for their lobster Reuben, consisting of slabs of greasy toast with the other white meat nestled inside. As lobster can live up 120 years when not interefered with, I prefer to avoid encouraging their demise. I find the meat tolerable, overly sweet, and that encourages me to not eat them. The fact that lobster live low-key lives, tucked under rocks and not doing much of anything allows me to sympathize with them when they are torn out of their quiet nooks and allowed to suffocate slowly in our dry atmosphere to become human food.
My blackened snapper lived a much shorter life and tasted a whole lot more savory than the poor old lobster in the reuben at the table next door. 
My companion pronounced the restaurant "ghetto" which is a term I believe of disapproval. When young Diggy eats out he likes table service, not do it yourself which is the low cost theme at Keys Fisheries. But he did like the notion of using a pseudonym to order the food, sometimes a movie star's name , or a figure from history; the day we were there it was song titles:
My companion pronounced the restaurant "ghetto" which is a term I believe of disapproval. When young Diggy eats out he likes table service, not do it yourself which is the low cost theme at Keys Fisheries. But he did like the notion of using a pseudonym to order the food, sometimes a movie star's name , or a figure from history; the day we were there it was song titles:Diggy took Low Rider, while I, with my search for the political in all statements went with Imagine. The view of the Gulf of Mexico was okay, blocked by a parked Catalina 27 and by the annoying waterfront fence.
The fries were declared "not as good as Burdines" by my junior food critic. Next time we'll try elsewhere, always searching for good eats in the Keys.
The fries were declared "not as good as Burdines" by my junior food critic. Next time we'll try elsewhere, always searching for good eats in the Keys.Well, you gotta do something to justify the ride.
