No Fried Food Allowed: Gulf Shores Steamer

Summer’s almost over.  That means it’s time for a quick weekend trip to the beach.  But you’re tired of fried, greasy, fattening food.  So what’s a beach bum to do?

Make a trip to the Gulf Shores Steamer.  It’s located at the “T” in Gulf Shores in the middle of tourist trap central, but it somehow has retained its local, hole-in-the-wall feel.

Nothing on the menu is fried.  I mean nothing.  The servers even wear buttons that have the word “fried” with a big red stripe angled across it. When it comes to sides, if you’re looking for hush puppies or french fries, you’re out of luck.  Instead, you’ll find corn, new potatoes and yummy cole slaw.

According to the restaurant’s website, Gulf Shores Steamer opened in 1989.  Since then it has been voted one of the top 20 seafood restaurants by Southern Living magazine and a “Best place to eat” in USA Today.  It even boasts a “Heart Smart” rating from Pensacola’s Sacred Heart Hospital.

But don’t worry.  It may be healthier than your run-of-the-mill seafood restaurant, but the seafood is still served with a creamy butter dipping sauce on the side.  When we go, we order the Small Steamer ($36.95).  It comes with four clusters of Alaskan Snow Crab Legs, at least a pound of Royal Red Shrimp and seasoned mussels and oysters.  They also bring you hardware store pliers for cracking and a plastic bucket like the ones kids use to make sandcastles to discard shells.  It also comes with corn, new potatoes and cole slaw.  The menu says it’s “enough for two”.  It’s plenty if you’re really hungry and more than enough if you’re not.  We like it so much; we’ve never ordered any other entrée.

We have been known to order an appetizer if we’re feeling really famished from a day on the hot sand.  The gumbo is delicious, rich and packed with veggies ($3.95 cup).  The raw oysters are fresh and cold ($7.95 dozen).  The pitchers of beer are cold, too. ($7.95-$9.95)

Inside, the dining room can feel small, so we always sit outside on the covered patio where you can feel the cool, gulf breeze.  At dinnertime, you can see the sunset from the right-hand side of the patio, although depending on which way you’re facing, the sun can be a bit bright.

All in all, you’ll get a great meal of fresh, steamed seafood at a place that was there long before the souvenir shops moved in next door.  So have a seat at the picnic table and don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.  Just pull a few paper towels off the handy tabletop dispenser, pick up your pliers and dig in!

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