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Key Largo Conch House
Key Largo Conch House
100211 Overseas Hwy
Key Largo, FL
305-453-4844
It is tough to find good seafood in the Florida Keys. Why, you ask? Because with so many seafood restaurants and so much access to fresh seafood, it is hard to chose a place to eat at.
I recently made a second visit to the Key Largo Conch House (http://www.keylargocoffeehouse.com) with my buddy Jeremy after a long and tiring day of tarpon fishing. The first time I ate there was impressive, but the second time absolutely blew me away. The atmosphere is a casual “Keys’y” laid back type feel, but not the touristy sand and island feel that just about every other restaurant has; the Conch House had more of a locals place feel to it. The Conch House is nestled admist a forest of trees, hidden and discreet. Don’t let the bushy “shack in the middle of the woods” outlook fool you though. What lies inside is some of the best food, cleanest presentation, and best service around in Key Largo. You feel right at home, comfortable, and not overwhelmed with that touristy feel like in most other restaurants in the Keys.
This is the place to be if you like a quality home cooked quality meal. The Lobster and Conch Ceviche is a must order item on the menu. This dish is prepared with the freshest ingredients and spiced just right. It is a refreshing dish to start your meal after a long day of being out on the water. Couple this dish with the fried cracked conch appetizer and you have the perfect yin and yang. The cracked conch is lightly breaded and with herbs mixed into the light breading and fried to perfection, not too dry, but not soggy with grease, just perfect. The Yellowtail fish tacos hit the spot just right for lunch. I had the Yellowtail Florentine last time for dinner and was very impressed. The presentation was great and the taste was second to none. It was definitely the best yellowtail snapper dish I had ever had. If you crave deserts, they have a selection of home made deserts that are different each day. The home made Key Lime Pie was the best pie I had ever had. It was not too tangy, nor too sweet… the texture was smooth and I actually finished an entire slice of Key Lime Pie for the first time in my life. The Conch House also offers a large variety of different teas and coffee, which they are famous for. Being Asian, I have had just about every type of tea imaginable and I will admit that the Conch House offers some of the most amazing iced tea. I will definitely be back to try the different flavor tea and coffee they offer.
Visit the restuarants website at www.keylargocoffeehouse.com or better yet; next time you are in Key Largo, get in your car and drive down to the Key Largo Conch House for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I guarantee you will be impressed.
Took the Canyon Bay 2270 offshore, Guy Harvey Shark tournament finals
5.23.2010
This week was a very busy. Had some non fishing/outdoor related shoot earlier on the week. One was for a Maxim magazine model, the other was a bio tech company. Boring stuff so you probably don’t want to hear about it. You gotta do what you gotta do.
The rest of the week was spent looking for more video footage of tarpon eats. I didn’t get much on the big fish but did get a couple small tarpon to eat really good.
One of the reason I got a bay boat(Cayonbay 2270) was to be more versatile in the summer time. Summer time is when there’s plenty of bait and the weather is calm enough to run offshore in a bay boat. That is exactly what I did one day last week. It was 1′ or less seas, we ran out 20 miles to a public number I had on a chart I bought that day at the marina and found some nice 3-5lb mangrove snappers and juvi aj. We chummed them up to the surface and was catching them on 15lb braid and 15-20lb test leaders. It was a blast sight casting these guys. I was too lazy to break out my fly rod but should have as it was flat calm out there and fish were 15′ away from the boat.
On the way back we ran into a pod of black fin tunas. I cast a Sebile Flat Shad into the mix and got a hook up right away but he came unbutton. I backed off my drag a bit and got hooked up yet again on the next cast. It took a while to bring the black fin in with the light drag thinking the hook might pull. The plan changed quickly once I saw big shark after him. I immediately open up the bail and let the tuna escaped then tighten the drag down and hauled him in. He weigh in at about 12-15lbs.
After the long day on the water the next 2 days was spent filming for the Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge. The weather was awesome and there were some nice fish caught. In the 2 day tournament the winner took home $10,000 in cash for catching 2 hammer heads right in Tampa bay.
Sorry not many photos as I was shooting videos for them most of the time. I did get some great emotions out of the contestants and it should make for some good TV. I am not the editor on this job so once they are done with it I share with you guys the finish video.
If you think you can catch a shark that is longer that 5′ you should think about fishing this tournament next year. There was on 9 teams and the check was 10k. I’ve seen redfish tournaments with 100 teams and the highest cash prizes(besides 1st place for a boat) was like 3k, makes no sense really.
I got a chance to ride in the new Andros 32 as the camera boat for the 2 days I was down filming. The boat is pretty darn nice ride. Excellent fit and finish and screams with twin Verados. The semi custom boat I was on had 64.. yes 64 rod holders! If I have time I will go do a short film clip walk through of all the rod holders. I might have a phone picture I took.
Cabbage Key Blooms
AJ
Mangrove snappers
Black Fin Tuna on the Sebile Flat Shad
Guy Harvey Shark Tournament
Tagging and swiming with a bull shark
Location X flies.. I was told.
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