Gator, tongue tacos: Favorite funky foods in restaurants from Cape Coral to Naples
Python, alligator sausage, swamp cabbage and frog legs. Those exotic toppings graced the Everglades Pizza at Evan's, a neighborhood pizza shop on Palm Beach Boulevard in Fort Myers.
But ever since Evan's closed in 2016, food items as unique and creative as that have been hard to come by.
Alas, we were determined to compile a list of our favorite eyebrow-raising menu items around Southwest Florida. From a seafood delicacy shipped from Australia to gator prepared in four different ways, Lee and Collier counties still boast a fair share of unprecedented food creations and concoctions.
GatorBites
Just because gator can be found on a few menus throughout Southwest Florida doesn’t make it less weird. You can find Louisiana gator tail at Salty Pappas in south Fort Myers, Florida gator bites at the Boat House locations in Fort Myers and Cape Coral and gator bites with ghost peppers sauce at Izzy’s in downtown Fort Myers.
But it’s GatorBites Tail & Ale off Summerlin Road in Fort Myers that amps it up.
“We do get a lot of people ordering it,” said manager Kenny Miller. “Especially if they’ve never tried it and they’re curious.”
If you haven’t had it, Miller recommends the samples which give you a pound of gator prepared all four ways ― bloody mary, blackened (Cajun), breaded and Buffalo.
You can also get your gator as gatorbites, in a gator tail basket or by the pound. It’s also on nachos and in a quesadilla, a pu-pu platter, a hearts of palm salad, a burger and as part of a seafood platter with mahi-mahi and shrimp.
GatorBites gets its gator meat frozen from “the same local trapper for the last 10 years.”
“We get the nuisance gators,” Miller added. “And we only use the tails. The tail meat is the best. It’s not as gristly. We brine it before we do anything with it.”
It must be good.
“We go through 50 to 70 pounds a week,” Miller said. “We ran out a couple of times in season.”
Try it at 20351 Summerlin Road, Fort Myers. (239) 267-1317, gatorbitesfortmyers.com.
Nice Guys
This Cape Coral pizza and creative cocktail joint is no stranger to unexpected food combinations. This includes past offerings of a head cheese bahni mi; frog legs with cucumber and blueberry salad; and mac & cheese with gorgonzola, melon and rabbit.
But it’s with pizza that owners Greg Gebhard and Jovana Batkovic seem to have the most fun.
Past creations include the Dominican Breakfast Pie with a cheese blend, crisp mallita salami, egg, pickled onion and mangu (smashed plantain); the Pizza Pizza, a pepperoni pizza with pizza bites and pizza bagels; and a Corned Beef and Cabbage pie, fittingly topped with a hearty serving of the traditional Irish dish.
We’re super excited about the return of their peanut butter, chili, hot dogs, Fritos and cheese-top pizza. It’ll be available for the Fourth of July. Nice Guys Pizza & Beer is at 1404 Cape Coral Parkway East in downtown Cape Coral. Stay up-to-date with their weird creations on the Nice Guys Pizza Facebook page. (239) 549-7542.
Best Ice Cream
This is not your traditional ice cream store by any means. Instead of looking at tubs full of different flavors, customers pick their ice cream flavor from the menu and watch as the magic/tasty science experiment begins.
“We use liquid nitrogen to freeze the milk and sugar,” owner Alicia Perez said. “The nitrogen lets me make the ice cream fresh for each person.”
Perez wakes up “at 5 in the morning every single day” to get the fresh ingredients she needs. Each flavor ― with happy brownie, cheesecake, crème brulee and carrot cake delight being the showstoppers on a recent visit ― is its own recipe that Perez crafts in stand mixers in a show of liquid smoke behind glass in the downtown Fort Myers location.
“I have to concentrate, or I’ll miss a step,” she said on a recent Saturday. “There’s a lot going on.”
The Dream Bowl, for example, is a bowl of freshly made cotton candy topped with edible glitter and filled with an ice cream flavor of your choosing.
While you wait, Perez will hand you a free sample of popcorn, cereal and other bitesize liquid nitrogen blasted snacks.
“I see people laugh every time the smoke comes out of their nose and mouth, so I named it Giggly Popcorn,” Perez said.
It’s so awesomely weird, we giggled our way through it too.
Best Ice Cream has locations at 1401 Lee Street in downtown Fort Myers; 2215 Winkler Ave., Suite K (which is currently undergoing renovations); and the first franchise ― opened in Puerto Rico by Perez's cousin. For more weirdly wonderful, visit Perez’s 21-and-up Mermaid Room next door to the downtown Fort Myers location from 6-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. (239) 689-4542, besticecreamnear.com.
Fat Katz
Peanut butter and bacon on a burger? Cabernet infused shrooms and fig jam on another? Hand-breaded chicken tenders or shrimp on a third? These wildly popular wild creations are all there to consume at this sports bistro in Fort Myers.
The strange but creative burgers are a big hit with News-Press readers.
Fat Katz was the runner up in our recent bracket challenge that featured the best 16 burgers in Lee County squaring off to find the No. 1 burger.
Owner Gregg Buell’s burger-focused restaurant advanced all the way to the final with its house-ground blend of brisket, short rib and chuck.
For the specialty ones, uncommon toppings are paired together for an oddly enjoyable experience.
The Crazy Larry, for example, features peanut butter, bacon, caramelized onions, cranberry relish, arugula and goat cheese. All are good separately. They’re even better piled high on this winner. Visit Fat Katz Sports Bistro where Daniels Parkway meets Interstate 75. (239) 768-3541, fatkatzsportsbistro.com.
FriesFactory
Poutine, to a Canadian, is about as weird as a heat wave is to us Southwest Floridians. But to Floridians this dish ― considered by some to be the national food of Canada ― of a heaping pile of fries topped with cheese curds and smothered in gravy is a bit odd.
FriesFactory takes it up a few notches on the weird scale with a pretty pink twist.
Take the local chain’s Pink Persia Fries. This twist on poutine loads falafel balls, quinoa, arugula and pink ― yes, pink ― hummus on a pile of piping hot fries. Served with a side of guacamole, this fancy fry feast with a pop of pink is a colorful and tasty work of art.
FriesFactory doesn’t stop there, though. There’s also a B-Mac version with ground beef, onions, melted cheese, pickles and B-sauce, and a General Tso dish with popcorn chicken tossed in General Tso sauce, topped with sesame seeds, scallions and cheese curds.
FriesFactory has two open locations ― at 8595 College Parkway, No. 3, in Fort Myers (closing sometime in July, says its website) and 7083 Radio Road in Naples, with a third in the works off Chiquita Boulevard in Cape Coral. lobsterrollsno1.com.
Bicyclette Cookshop:
Kayla Pfeiffer is no stranger to unique food combinations. Her path to victory on Food Network’s "Chopped" required her to cook alligator hearts with marshmallow as an ingredient.
Now, as executive chef and co-owner of this cookshop in Naples, Pfeiffer has kept the creative concoctions coming.
Kick off the meal with a snack ― the crispy pig ear lettuce wraps. Slow-braised heritage pork ears are tossed in a vadouvan curry spice blend, cradled in bib lettuce and garnished with pickled daikon, carrots, mint, cilantro and kimchi aioli.
Follow it up with the zaatar chicken for dinner. Charred onion, olive and pita panzanella with a ginormous chicken leg ― and the foot still attached. While we don’t usually play with our food, we can get behind the restaurant’s Instagram and Facebook pages, which display a video of the zaatar chicken dish receiving a fist bump.
In the mood for dessert? Consider a cheesy end to your meal with the tete de moine, a semi-hard cheese served with dates, honeycomb and carta cracker.
Visit Bicyclette Cookshop at 819 Vanderbilt Beach Road, Naples, (239) 514-3333, bicyclettecookshop.com.
Sails
Moreton Bay bugs are fascinating creatures; picture the body of a lobster with the legs of a horseshoe crab. While they may look like some underwater-pill-bug-monstrosity, the seafood dish is known for tasting like lobster, and is very popular in Australia.
The delicacy is found off the coast of northern Australia and is locally served at this Fifth Avenue restaurant in Naples.
Try the Australian Slipper Lobster, wood-Grilled or a la plancha, with lemon herb aioli as part of Sails’ Champagne brunch luxury specials. Sails, 301 Fifth Ave. S., Naples, (239) 360-2000, sailsrestaurants.com.
Tableside
Common hangover remedies in the U.S. tend to recommend eating eggs, salty foods and loading up on carbohydrates.
This Naples restaurant, however, offers tripe soup ― what is considered the ultimate hangover remedy in Romania.
Tripe is a cut of meat taken from the stomach lining of farm animals, typically cows, pigs, sheep and goats.
Tableside offers this rich and creamy concoction along with other traditional Romanian dishes, some with modern twists.
The Romanian cabbage rolls also caught our eye, where spiced minced meat is wrapped in cabbage and slow cooked in tomato sauce.
It’s not often that we find Romanian food here in Southwest Florida, so Tableside’s modern takes on these traditional dishes is a unique approach that we admire. Tableside Restaurant, 2355 Vanderbilt Beach Road, suite 158, Naples, (239) 734-3854, tablesiderestaurant.com.
Taqueria San Julian
It is not common to find cow tongue or cow head on a restaurant menu. San Julian has both.
Whether you’re in the mood for a soft taco or quesadilla, both can be ordered with beef tongue or head as your choice of meat.
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The tacos come on a corn tortilla with cilantro, onions and meat. The quesadilla is the same, but on a flour tortilla.
Additional toppings of avocado, tomato and cheese are also available, though we aren’t quite sure what would go best with tongue. Taqueria San Julian, 3575 Bayshore Drive, Naples, (239) 775-6480, Taqueria San Julian on Facebook.