This week’s Edible Exploration took us to Lake Mary to dine at Fresh on the Fly at 1210 S. International Parkway (near Heathrow).  

You get the restaurant’s name as soon as you walk in -- there’s a glass case filled with fresh fish that looks like it was just taken off the hook, and the walls sport pictures of fish so large that there must be dozens of people claiming bragging rights for each photo.

My kids wanted to sit at the counter and watch the chefs prepare our meal, and those turned out to be good seats. We watched them make fresh tortilla chips and even sampled a few, along with a few other tasty morsels the chefs sneaked our way.

During our first visit we had shared the Citrus Poached Wild Caught Shrimp Cocktail, the Floridian Seafood Manhattan Style Chowder and the Fried Flounder Sandwich. This time I tried the crispy Mahi Mahi Bites and the Blackened Fish Tacos with spicy pineapple and mango cream.

Apalachicola Oyster Shooters with a Key Lime Cocktail Sauce are on the menu but were not available during my last visit. Chef Chad Wadsworth told us that he’s been confidently buying the oysters once again for about a month, but I didn’t get to try one because now that they are back on the menu they sell out quickly.

Fresh on the Fly has a great kids’ menu, which in addition to fresh fish offers a grilled cheese made like a Cuban pressed sandwich and a grass-fed burger. (My kids loved dipping their food in my jalapeno tartar sauce.) They also offer gluten-free buns and wraps, and kids under 10 eat free on Monday nights.

Besides the yummy food, what I like most about this restaurant is that Chef Chad Wadsworth strives to use local and/or eco-conscious suppliers, and all of the fish is wild caught – makes sense for a chef who says he goes catch-and-release fishing on his day off! They also serve grass-fed beef from Deep Creek Ranch and hormone- and antibiotic-free chicken, and their produce comes from a smaller local distributor. Even the cups and take-out products are environmentally friendly.

The whole family is looking forward to our next visit – maybe next time we’ll be lucky and they’ll still have plenty of oysters.

Chef Stacy
The Gourmet Table 407-493-2830
We are celebrating 5 years of service!
And now find The Gourmet Table on Facebook

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Welcome to Edible Explorations! I’m Chef Stacy, and this blog will be full of fun ways for your family to eat their way through Central Florida and learn a lot in the process. My husband, our two opinionated young teens and I have had a lot of adventures meeting the people who make this a delicious place to live, and I know you’ll have a great time following in our footsteps.

When I think about our great State, three things come to mind: sun, oranges and alligators. Since only the latter two are edible and the oranges on the trees are still green right now, my thoughts one recent weekend turned to alligators. My online search led me to The Black Hammock in Oviedo, a wilderness area that strives to preserve the natural habitat along Lake Jessup. We didn’t go to the wilderness area located closer to Geneva, but instead the kids and I headed to the restaurant at 2356 Black Hammock Fish Camp Road in Oviedo. As you drive in, the restaurant is on your left but there’s also the Lazy Gator Bar, a gift shop with all things gator and, should you want to see the alligators in their natural habitats, a small marina offering airboat rides.

Taking pictures of the gators they had in the tourist viewing pens (and the taxidermy gators inside) was close enough for me.

The restaurant serves frog legs, catfish and Florida mahi-mahi as well as alligator, which you can get blackened or fried. They even had hot gator eggs, but we didn’t go there. As the saying goes, alligator tastes similar to chicken, so my son and I ordered a basket of chicken fingers and a basket of Florida gator bites and did a side-by-side taste test. Much to our surprise, we both preferred the gator to the chicken, especially with the honey-mustard dipping sauce.

A cook named Dwight was kind enough to talk with us about our meal. I first asked him if a foodservice truck pulls up with their gator supply or if their employees venture out on the airboats. Dwight laughed and said that he has yet to wrestle the food for service, explaining that the gators are purchased from trappers who catch “nuisance” gators. Dwight allowed my son to pet a baby gator from an aquarium as he explained that the restaurant generally uses the tail meat for most dishes because there’s not much meat on the ribs. When we got home I immediately began researching “nuisance” gators. According to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), a nuisance gator is defined as at least four feet in length and must pose a threat to people, pets or property. In 2009, over 14,000 nuisance gators were reported and approximately 7100 were removed. So my dinner probably came from a gator that was in someone’s backyard.

Once the gator is removed, it becomes the property of the trapper, who then sells it to an alligator farm, an exhibit or zoo, or a restaurant. To report a nuisance gator, call (866) FWC-GATOR, don’t try to fry it up yourself! Head to the Black Hammock, take a picture next to “Hammy” the resident gator and buy some gator jerky! It’s much more fun (and safer) that way. Stay tuned for my next Edible Exploration. Chef StacyThe Gourmet Table 407-493-2830We are celebrating 5 years of service!And now find The Gourmet Table on Facebook

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