We are still enjoying our beach vacation for our anniversary and today I have a cute crochet dress that I picked up from a local boutique last week. I love the colors and immediately knew this was perfect for a beach day. I am wearing a M/L because that was the only size available, but I like that because it is longer. I did pair it with a long smooth tank top underneath because I wasn't sure how see through it would be.
We frequent a lot of different beaches around Florida because why not? It is all our back yard and I feel so blessed to live by so many beautiful beaches. That was one of the motivating factors in how my Instagram grid developed because I wanted to show my lifestyle, a Florida lifestyle that a lot of us live here in the Bay. I am right near Tampa Bay and Beer Can Island a place that you can only access by boat. I am in Anna Maria Island, this is a place both my husband and I spent almost all of the earlier days of our marriage at when Clearwater was so super popular and it literally so impossible to find parking or space on the beach. It is beautiful here and it is so quiet and never crowded.
Am I doing a food tour? Ok, so that is a good question. I will start by saying AMI is not known for its food. I have stayed out here a bunch of times and I almost always end up driving to Sarasota to eat. I put together a food tour for this trip, but I am in the middle of my annual Summer Food and Fashion Tour. So, I will just share the eats and my opinions and it will be the unspoken AMI/SRQ Food Tour of 2022. Now, back to what I was saying, AMI has never been known for its food, a lot of these places are beachy type dive restaurants that serve a lot of fried seafood platters etc which for me is not going to be gluten free or appealing as I rarely eat fried food.
However, in the recent years thanks to social media more people are discovering AMI which for me was a well kept local and loved secret and so more and more new restaurants are popping up. So I did take some time to put together some places in AMI and Sarasota to visit. And I guess I should say Sarasota is really one of my favorite places to go and dine because a lot of their restaurants have gluten free menus because a lot of their clientele is older (elderly) and they tend to be on restrictive diets.
Crochet Dress: Local Boutique Joyful Notion, local boutique
Heels: Not recent, Sam Eddleman in Aiesha
Arm cuff: Kendra Scott Candace in silver and gold
Earrings: C/O Ettika
Cortez Clam Factory
So I found out about this restaurant via a page I follow on Instagram and I thought the steamed lobster with corn and potatoes looked pretty good and wanted to try it. So, I then followed the restaurants Instagram page for a while and all their photos look good; they had a good mix of professional photos and non professional. So here I am like, "ok, this place is saying it has fine dining by the beach" and I check their website and that looks good too.
Y'all, this is a dive restaurant, if anything it's a dive bar that sales bar food. Walking up it looks scary and uninviting. It is in a plaza which is not a bad thing per say because aa lot of restaurants are in (shopping) plazas. As I am approaching I am getting looks and stares and not the kind like "oh hi!" It's the kind like why is "she" here. Ok, so inside it's dark and dank. No one at the hostess stand. We wait around and finally someone comes up and he is like "seat yourself". So we sit outside.
Outside isn't so bad because they have a newly constructed patio (overlooking the parking lot). Outside is designated for smokers so there is a large group smoking and talking loudly. Looking at the menu almost everything is fried and I wouldn't eat raw oysters at a place like this because at this point I'm questioning the safety and cleanliness of their kitchen. So I already know I can't get the steamed lobster because apparently that is a special and its only available on Wednesdays. So I opt for the steamed clams and that's it because at this point I don't want to be here longer than I have to and nothing else is gluten free other than peel and eat shrimp. Hubs always wants tacos so I already know he is getting tacos. The food takes a little long to come out and during this time we witness a waitress serve a person a beer in a glass and he proceeded to get in his van and drive off with it (after already having drank with his friends...) like that is a normal occurrence around here.
So, the food comes out and it looks decent and tastes ok. The clams were medium sized, but not well cleaned. They still had dirt in them. The fish tacos were good, but they didn't have corn tortillas only wheat, they slathered some type of mayo sauce all over them and the fried fish had a lot of runny watery liquid running out of them which kinda made us wonder if the fish had been sitting in water prior to cooking.
It was cheap and it was fast. This place is "technically" by the beach, its 10 minutes away and said Instagram pages do portray it as being on the beach. Now, had I checked Yelp reviews I would have known this was a complete dive bar that locals go to and hang out all day, but instead I took the recommendation of this Instagram page (which I am not naming) who hyped Cortez Claim Factory up. This was a bait and switch of the highest degree using the words upscale and fine dining is a misnomer.
I can't recommend it, but if you like seafood they do have a lot of positive reviews and that also goes for their daily specials. If you eat outside it can be decent. I didnt feel comfortable there and it wasn't because of the location or the fact that it was a dive restaurant. If you know what I am trying to say. This was a one and done. My husband the taco lover gave the tacos a 5/10.
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