Key West Food & Wine Fest

The Restaurant Store hosts the Seafood Shakedown as one of the must attend events during the Key West Food & Wine Festival.

The Seafood Shakedown is an annual event where contestants are provided 10 lbs. of Key West Pinks to prepare and compete for the title and to be crowned Seafood King.

This year we decided not only to attend, but participate.

Set up began at 8:30 in the parking lot of the Restaurant Store. Contestants were provided a 10 x 10 popup tent, a 6′ table and 10 lbs. of some of the best fresh shrimp that could only come from the Florida Keys.

Everything needs to be ready by 11:00 am when event goers show up to sample our seafood creations.

After a recent visit to Robert Is Here in Florida City, I had plenty of collard greens on hand.
We decided to do Key West Pinks cooked in collard greens served in an oyster shell.

Half Shell Raw Bar provided the oyster shells that we boiled in a solution of baking soda and salt to sanitize, they were then rinsed extremely well and put in the freezer until the morning of the event.

Once our booth was set up, we began the task of peeling and deveining the 10 lbs. of shrimp.
The collard greens, which we prepared in advance, were heated in large pots over gas burners.
Once the greens reached temperature shrimp were added and poached before serving in them together in the oyster shells.

Everything went very well. The time flew by and after serving about 110 event goers and 5 celebrity judges it was time to find out how we did.

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