Boniato and 3030 Ocean

Last weekend I had the pleasure of dining at 3030 Ocean, which is a hotel/beach club on Ft Lauderdale beach. Normally I wouldn’t think much of a hotel restaurant, but this one was really good.

There was an appetizer of clams in a spicy lemongrass broth, which was great. I normally prefer living in the 100K+ range of the Scoville scale, but this broth managed to be spicy enough for me to enjoy, while still being edible for everyone else. I think the broth was intended as a complement to the clams, but I drained that bowl to the bottom. Spicy soups are definitely a great idea.

The particular thing that caught me was the entree. I went with the Florida snapper (remember kids — fresher is better) which was served with grilled green onions and boniato. Snapper was great — served with crispy skin on the fish — but the boniato is what really caught my attention.

Boniato is a plant that started being eaten in South America, and has since moved to the Caribbean, and then South Florida. I lived in South Florida for most of my life, and had never come across this, so I wanted to try it out. Turns out that it is awesome. It’s basically a potato — looks and feels like a regular white potato, but tastes like a sweet potato. If you have the opportunity to try it, I recommend it. It was served to me in mashed form, and I hope to reproduce this dish in the near future.