Fun Playing With Food at Harbor Docks, Destin FL

Though occasionally inconsistent, Harbor Docks remains our "go to" Destin restaurant for fish. Ok, the breakfast wasn't stellar, but I feel obligated to tell the truth about it - then recommend you go to Harbor Docks for lunch and dinner (especially lunch, which offers a nice value and some delightful Southeast Asian flavors). Yes, tourists go there, but it remains at its heart a locals place, located in the same space on the harbor for the last 40 years.

We dined at the Harbor Docks bar our first night in Destin. There was a boat fest on the harbor and the restaurant was jammed, but I was not going to be denied a plate of Harbor Docks after 7 years absent from Destin! Just one bite into that exquisitely fresh and well prepared fish, the tears welled up. Tears of joy.

First, though, the ubiquitous Harbor Docks salad. The only time I'll actually eat canned mandarin oranges. And like them!

BLACKENED CATCH OF THE DAY (grouper), corn chow chow, smoked gouda stone-ground grits, vegetable of the day (green beans)

Bob's Sesame Crusted Snapper was equally delicious, but too blurry to post.

As I wrote seven years ago in this post, "Our “go to” breakfast for ten years [was] the Silver Sands Breakfast at Harbor Docks." The Silver Sands’s proprietor, Mr. Ferrell Shipp, passed away in July 2011 and the Silver Sands Breakfast ended three months later. Harbor Docks initiated their own breakfast shortly after, but no one could make biscuits like Mr. Shipp and the one breakfast we sampled in 2012 was still in the development stage. Harbor Docks currently offers breakfast Friday-Sunday. I wanted so much to love it, but my advice is to enjoy lunch and dinner at Harbor Docks, but leave breakfast to the pros.

Bob's: French Toast with Conecuh Sausage

Bob's' French Toast was good but nothing to write home about. In it's defense, though, this plate was our first introduction to Conecuh Sausage. This family business began in 1947 in Evergreen, Alabama, and produces very tasty hickory smoked sausages with simple ingredient lists and interesting seasonings. We found them in local grocery stores also, but wouldn't have known to look for them but for this breakfast plate.

Mine:  Half Order of Biscuits & Sausage Gravy

Mine: Cheese Grits

The biscuits are no longer made in house, and this one wasn't very good. The gravy was ok, but no longer available without the sausage. The true sin against breakfast, however, was in the grits. Bullion cubes, to be precise. The addition of bullion cubes did not add flavor in a good way; instead it created an overly salty, artificial-flavor, funhouse-mirror effect on the palate. So, while we enjoyed several other meals at Harbor Docks, we did not return for breakfast.

Lunch was a completely different, delicious, savory story.

Bob's: Fried Grouper Fingers, Cheese Grits, Coleslaw, Hushpuppies

Fish Curry (I think it was snapper), Rice

Spring Rolls, Dipping Sauce

Bob's plate hit all the expected tasty notes, and the grits were obviously made by someone not on the breakfast crew, who knows how to make them. But mine hit the motherload - a skillful, just-spicy enough Thai style curry caressing perfectly sauteed local Snapper, plated with Jasmine Rice and accompanied by two crispy right-out-of-the-fryer, made in house, spring rolls with dipping sauce.

There would be two additional dinners at Harbor Docks. Neither hit the heights of the first dinner or lunch, but they were mostly solid, and delivered with Harbor Docks's excellent service and hospitality (hello to Ms. Sunshine, who is still serving there even after these many years!).

Bob's: Fried Grouper fingers, Fries

Mine: Grilled Tuna, Rice, Veg, Buerre Blanc.

Though Bob's fried plate was excellent, my tuna was just a little older than it wanted to be, and it couldn't compare to the exquisite tuna I cooked from Blalock's. There was something funky about the Buerre Blanc also. These things happen, the plate was enjoyable, just not stellar.

Bob's: Fried Triggerfish

Mine: Blackened Snapper, Grits, Chow Chow, Green Beans

Again, Bob's fried plate hit the spot, but mine, which was the same order from our first dinner in December, somehow lacked profundity. It may have mattered that there was a big beer tasting dinner going on in the next dining room. In any event, we love playing with food at Harbor Docks, and we will be back there upon our return to Destin!

Harbor Docks
538 Harbor Blvd.
Destin, FL 32541
(850) 837-2506
info@harbordocks.com

HOURS
Monday - Wednesday 11am - 10pm

Thursday 11am - 11pm

Friday - Saturday 7am - 11pm

Sunday 7am - 10pm

Fun Playing With Food in Destin, Florida - We're Baaack

We last visited Destin, the "Luckiest Fishing Village in the World," in February 2012. Since then, life intervened with some twists and turns. Beginning in December 2018, we not only returned to Destin, but for the first time, snowbirded there until March. We anticipate moving to the region sometime shortly. 

A lot has changed and a lot has remained the same, both culinarily and otherwise. Our condo overlooked the Gulf of Mexico and offered some lovely views.

From the terrace

From the private beach access

On the beach at sunset

We also took a short road trip to Delray Beach and Jacksonville, enjoying delicious eats along the way. 

Stone Crab Claws for dinner at Gleneagles Main Dining Room

Salvadoran Tamale at Rosy's, Jacksonville

The best plate of food from the trip? Was it this Chirashi at Sushimoto in Miramar Beach?

Or perhaps this whole Grilled Snapper at Christiano's in Santa Rosa Beach?

Or could it have been something we cooked ourselves, like this Seared Tuna sourced from Blalock's Seafood & Specialty Market in Destin?

Please join me in the posts to follow as we seek out Fun Playing with Food in Destin and its environs.

More Fun Playing with Ohio City Pasta and Cleveland's West Side Market

Among the many treasures at Cleveland's storied West Side Market is Stand E-3: Ohio City Pasta. In April 2010, I won a random-draw contest OCP ran on its Facebook page, and became entitled to one pound of pasta and one sauce, butter or oil, each month for a year. More than being a tasty prize - the opportunity got us back into the habit of visiting the West Side Market and it was a habit we'd forgotten.

As I documented in the first two blog installments about my luscious prize (here and here), some things at  the WSM change, and others stay the same year after year - it is worth a bit of your time to venture there and play with the food and related offerings. Following are photos from the four months that followed those first two posts, together with some of the meals to which the OCP pastas and toppings contributed.  The narrative resumes with June 2010, and another peek into the OCP case at the Market:

Our sauce/oil/butter pick for June:

Orange Basil Spaghetti

Garlic Chive Linguine

Whole Hawaiian Snapper (Kate's Fish)

 Stuffed with Herbs and Grilled

OCP Orange-Basil Pasta and Garden Green Beans with Roasted Shallot Red Wine Butter, Grilled Hawaiian Snapper

We basically rinsed and repeated for the next dinner, using the linguine pictured above.

July 2010:

OCP Wheat Somen

Cooked

Whole wheat somen under Duck Curry made with Roasted Makinajian Farms duck (LI/NY), garden corn and tomatoes

I believe that we froze the second package of OCP from our July prize because we were going out of town. That pasta (and my apologies that I don't have the variety), appeared in a melange of garden vegetables and cheese a few weeks later:





We didn't get back to OCP until the very last weekend in August. We had just returned from visiting family in NY, and had brought back some lovely ingredients to complement the fresh pasta and our burgeoning garden.

Chicken-Apple Sausage (CZUCHRAJ meats, WSM)

Ohio City Pasta, Garden Tomato, CZUCHRAJ meats chicken sausage, Richter's Orchard (LI) peaches (latter 2 on the grill)

Freshly made mozzarella (AS Pork Stores, 530A Larkfield Road, E. Northport 11731, 631-266-1540)

OCP, Garden Tomato, Garden Italian Beans, Fresh Mozzarella, Garden Basil, EVOO

September is the last month to be covered in this post (I'll try to take the second six months of the prize in two three-month intervals; we'll see how that goes). 

Pumpkin-Saffron Pasta

Pumpkin-Saffron Pasta with Lobster Cream Sauce, Garden Red Onion, Hot Pepper and Italian Green Beans

Whole Wheat-Fennel Pasta

Cooked

Whole Wheat Fennel Pasta with Lobster Cream Sauce

As of this point in the timeline, we had obtained but not yet sampled a roasted tomato-basil oil, and a Cajun Cream Sauce, which lived in our freezer until a couple of weeks ago. More on those items later. The lobster cream sauce and shallot butter were both lovely. Don't expect a lot of lobster pieces (and at the modest price point it sells for, quite reasonable), but the sauce sings with delicate lobster flavor.

We had fun playing with every variety of OCP pasta that we've tasted, as well as the toppings. Hope you've enjoyed reading about them - you can get them at the WSM and at most Heinen's Supermarkets in the Cleveland Area, as well as at the  Shaker Square and Crocker Park outlets of the North Union Farmer's Markets, as well as at Buehlers Grocery Stores (Store Locations) and Whole Foods (Store Locations).

In the next installment - something new for OCP and for us - freshly made extruded pastas - can you say awesome Mac N Cheese? I can!