Dining Out Gulf Coast: Raw Oyster (and more) Tour!

While on our recent vacation to the Florida Gulf Coast, we decided we'd take a day off from the beach and ramble around and eat raw oysters all day. At the end of the day, we had enjoyed four dozen oysters in some form or fashion. 

Let's start with my favorite of the day, Boss Oyster in Apalachicola, Florida. 

Some of the BEST oysters in the world come from Apalachicola Bay. Not only are the oysters (both raw and baked) delicious, the presentation is as it should be. But more on that a little later.

We chose to sit on the back deck near the bay.

And let's bring on the raw oysters! Notice that they are nestled around in large chunks of ice. In Florida, even in May, you need lots of ice for these fresh beauties. Served with an ample supply of lemon slices, horseradish, ketchup, and hot sauce. And don't forget the unending supply of crackers!

Then we moved on to sampling an assortment of baked oysters. Three each of steamed oysters with butter,  baked with parmesan cheese, and baked with parmesan and garlic. There was no way to choose a winner here. We enjoyed them all equally.

And, even though, we were stuffed, we had to try the smoked tuna dip. Once again, a beautiful presentation. This was actually more of a smoked tuna salad than a dip with all the vegetables served alongside. Lightly smoked and incredibly flavorful.

Sweet Harold enjoyed his time at Boss Oysters!

We said goodbye to Apalachicola and meandered back around to the Indian Pass Raw Bar near Port St. Joe, FL.  

When you're greeted with this sign, you know they mean business.

An order of a dozen raw ones, please! These were large oysters and very tasty, but see what's missing?  No ice chunks.  Just oysters on the half shell plopped on a plastic tray.  Minus points for some shell fragments in the oysters.

I tried the seafood gumbo. A dark, flavorful roux, but a little more seafood would have been nice.

Because Sweet Harold does love a good corn dog......

We are, if nothing else, willing to take one for the Fleur de Lolly team.  One last stop at Shipwreck Raw Bar at St. Joe Beach, Florida. Bonus points for serving nestled in ice chunks. But there were shell fragments in about half the oysters, and these little beauties had a distinct briny flavor. 

We waddled out to the car content that we had enjoyed a wide variety of oysters and would be able to give y'all a fair report.  Hope you had as much fun as we did!