Day Trip to Pine Island and the Tarpon Lodge Restaurant

I have some relatives coming in for a visit and the 11 year old girl, who is on a swim team, wants to go to the beach. I know. Which one , right? I was thinking to add a little adventure to the day to keep everybody interested. So I went to Pine Island to check out the boat rides to a state park on one of the islands that you can only get to by boat. It has a 9 mile stretch of beach, bike paths and hiking trails. The plan would be to pack a lunch since there are no restaurants on this island. So we’re thinking about taking a Tropical Island Cruise to the island or maybe a cruise that stops at a bunch of islands including Cabbage Key. I’ll let you know in a later post what we did.

In the meantime, I did take the opportunity to eat at The Tarpon Inn. If you’re staying on Pine Island, I’d say go there to eat. Its an old classic place with a great view of the water if you eat on the enclosed patio. The interior is dark and woody with an old classic bar and fireplace in what looks to be the main dining room. I guess it could get cold enough to start up that huge fireplace for a day or two in the winter!

The service was very polished, the people were very nice and the place looked well kept. As a matter of fact, someone was trying to adjust the door to the outside to close properly while there was quite a few diners in the room. I would have waited till service was over to do this non emergency task.

To start, I ordered their signature soup, the Blue Crab Corn Chowder. It was good, but if I ever eat there again, I’d try a different soup. My wife ordered the Crab Cake as her entree. It was good. The sauce was nice. It came with cole slaw which I guess had some kind of mango dressing on it. My dish also came with the cole slaw with mango dressing and I just couldn’t believe it was made that day. Tasted old, not enough dressing and kind of bland. I had to salt everything, including my entree which was the Crispy Fish of the Day Sandwich. The fish of the day was, surprise, surprise… grouper! There must be a lot of grouper in the waters around Florida, because everywhere you go the fish of the day is… grouper.

My fish sandwich was good. It was on grilled whole grain bread with tomato, lettuce and I think the same sauce that was on my wife’s crab cake plate. Was it crispy? The part of the fish that was sticking out of the bread was, but everything under the bread was steamed from the heat of the fish. They should try to serve it open faced and let the customer put the top on when ready to eat. But it was a good sandwich and a nice piece of fish. It was $22. My cup of soup was $7. The total bill was $70 for lunch which also included a glass of unsweetened ice tea and a sangria. The 20 percent tip put us at $84 for lunch for two. I won’t be driving out to Pine Island for a fish sandwich anytime soon!

Check out their website by clicking here. Here’s some pics!