Naples didn’t offer many hidden-gem restaurants of the sort that I particularly like to hit when I travel, but there were two spots worth mentioning, one on each end of the price scale.
Driving towards the hotel (the Naples Grande Resort) from the Fort Myers airport, I caught a glimpse of a place called Tacos Ardiente in a strip mall just before I got to the hotel. Since almost every other restaurant I saw on Pine Ridge Road was a fast-food restaurant or casual-dining chain franchise, I was pretty sure that I’d need a place like that to keep me sane. It was good enough the first day that I went back for a second. I can’t speak to authenticity, but their tacos were outstanding, and unlike any I’d had before. I tried both the chicken and steak tacos; the steak ones had more flavor. The tacos were served in a soft flour shell with lettuce, shredded cabbage, cheese (although naturally I had them leave it out), and a fresh tomato salsa; they went for $1.99 each. I also ordered a small side order of guacamole (50 cents), which tasted homemade. So the damage for one meal, including a Jarritos tamarind soda, was about $6 including tax.
I saw a few good comments on chowhound about a sushi place a mile or two north of the hotel on US-41 called Sushi-Thai. I’m usually wary of sushi-plus-non-Japanese-food restaurants, but this is Florida, and beggars can’t be choosers. I stuck with sushi and was pleasantly surprised. The salmon was very fresh and mild-tasting; it didn’t have the slight sweetness of Pacific salmon, but it still had good flavor and boded well for the rest of the fish. The unagi was excellent, although it’s hard to screw it up. The spicy tuna maki was a treat, as I’d never had it prepared this way before: Rather than tossing finely chopped tuna with a spicy sauce (sometimes containing mayo, making the whole thing wretched), the chef made a plain tuna maki, cut the roll into eight pieces, then drizzled a hot chile pepper sauce over the top of it. The taste of the tuna really came through in a way that traditional spicy tuna rolls don’t allow. I also splurged on fried shumai, which were just lightly browned and not even a little bit greasy.
By the way, the best quote from the GM meetings belongs to Jeff Angus of Management by Baseball fame: “Alcohol is the humidor of conversation.”