February 10, 2024 Breakfast coffee and a chocolate croissant. Lunch - Cheese abdcPate’ on the plane. Dinner - Anna Marie’s Oyster House

 February 10, 2024 Breakfast coffee and a chocolate croissant. Lunch - Cheese abdcPate’ on the plane. Dinner - Anna Marie’s Oyster House

We awakened at 4:00 to travel to Sarasota, Florida, to visit Suzette’s brother Don and his wife, Beverly.

We flew to Houston n to Sarasota. When we arrived we picked up our rental car and drove to the Sarasota Shell Club Shell Show. There were every type of exhibit from self-collected shell collections to objects made with shell like prize winning life sized chicken and shell dealers.  I was amazed by the quality of cowrie shells. I found a Perlae Perlae at Brian Hayes’ table and several South African shells and a nice Hawaiian Tiger Schindlerium and several good South African shells at Dan Lamb’s Sarasota Exotic shells table.  I even met the famous shell dealer Donald Dan, who was in attendance.

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I was fun and I bought several shells that I think I need for my collection.

Then we drove to Don and Bev’s house in Bradenton, Florida.

We talked fr a while and then when they suggested Anna Marie’s Oyster House we all agreed to go there.

It was a huge restaurant with at least 300 seats.  We were seated quickly but it took a while to peruse the extensive menu.  Suzette and I decided to split a dozen oysters and a grilled wolf fish. Don ordered Oysters Rockefeller and Bev ordered fried scrimp for appetizers and Don ordered grilled Coria, Bev ordered grilled shrimp, and Suzette and I split a grilled Wolf fish entree with carrots and boiled  and  sautéed baby potatoes also.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the lovely Banfi Tuscan Sauvignon Blance named Rime that was delicious.

                                                  The delicious cobia. 

           

                                                            The inedible wolfish

The wolffish turned out to have an awful flavor and we liked the Coria, so when our waitress asked us how we liked our wolfish we told and when we told her we liked the big, she offered to bring us a grilled coni’s.

The waitress turned out to be a gem. We gave her a 25% tip for saving our meal.

We drove home and I made Don and me a Grande Marnier cognac and then we went to bed after a long day of travel.

Bon Appetit