Let’s talk about swordfish. Not about which ones are kosher, but about which ones are good.

I have always liked swordfish. But I don’t eat it often. We don’t have it at home, so I don’t pay attention to it at The Fishery. And it isn’t on every restaurant menu. And it has a lot of mercury.

I have ordered swordfish several times over the past few years at the Parthenon and have always been a bit disappointed. Not terribly disappointed. Just a bit.

Saturday night, we went with our friends to Carmine’s Trattoria in Riviera Beach, FL. Carmine’s is an upscale and very, very, very, very big and popular restaurant, the kind that has Bentleys and Astin Martins parked out front and has every table filled. We had eaten there before, but I don’t remember what I ate. This time, I ordered swordfish.  It looked similar to the swordfish at the Parthenon. But it didn’t even make the disappointing grade I give the Parthenon. In fact, it was so dry that I sent it back. They were nice about it, offered me substitutes, took it off the bill, etc. But I said, “No, I am fine.” I learned from the years I was a vegetarian that skipping the main course does not leave you hungry.

Yesterday, we got off the highway to find a lunch spot overlooking water. We found the Sebastian Saltwater Marina Restaurant.

This was a view from table on the large deck. It had an interesting menu which included a “catch of the day,” which turned out to be (ta-da!) swordfish.

I thought this might be my last swordfish ever, but I took a deep breath and ordered it, slightly blackened. It was perfect. Undoubtedly caught that morning. Restoring my faith in swordfish. But I will only order it dockside.

Our drive yesterday was fine, listening mainly to podcasts about Ukraine, with one diversion when we again left the road to explore Daytona Beach, where we had never been before.

I remember Daytona from tales about Spring Break dusturbances and NASCAR racing. The beach stretches a long way, there are many spaced out condos and hotels which looked nice enough, but the commercial areas did have sort of a sad and left-behind look, which I think is accurate.  No need ever to get off the road to explore it again.

We are now in the outskirts of St. Augustine, the country’s oldest city, at a nice Best Western. The plan was to explore the city a bit this morning,  but we are faced with our first rain of the trip, complete with very loud thunder, so I am not sure.

The desk clerk told us we should go to the historic part of town for dinner last night, but we ignored her advice and went to Cortesse’s Flamingo Bar (1 minute drive, said GPS) and had a delicious dinner at a small but packed restaurant which has piano music 7 nights a week. Yesterday, playing was Alex Richman, playing blues and the like, and singing, and she was worth the price of admission.

Today, onward to Charleston and friends, and the hope that the weather doesn’t slow us down too much.