“Usually I’m not so talkative,” John told us gruffly. I’m not certain if he meant this as an apology or a warning. He was the proprietor of the Marine Supply Store on City Island, which was, essentially, a fabulous disarray of fishing equipment and knick-knacks in a ten by ten room, with a mountain of propellers, outboard motors, plastic Santa Clauses, ropes, buckets and other flotsam occupying the side yard. John had owned the place, on a little strip of land in the Long Island Sound, for over fifty years. After reeling through a list of every restaurant on the island and passing on some bits of information that seemed loaded with meaning that we couldn’t quite interpret (“Some people, they love the Crab Shanty. Some people, they don’t like the Crab Shanty.”), he ended by saying, “Look: they all pull out the fresh seafood. There’s not a place here that’s bad.”

The end of the island

A few weeks ago, I had never heard of City Island. But this isle of tree-lined, waterside seclusion was definitely, definitely at the end of the line, a long 6 train trip from Brooklyn with a bonus bus jaunt at the end. Since it was, I’d heard, famous for its seafood and since I haven’t eaten much seafood in the decade-plus that I’ve been a vegetarian, I decided to bring along Jason as a more expert second opinion.

With all of the suggestions from John, we felt even more confused than when we’d first stepped off the bus, but we decided to press on to the very tip of the island, for a look at the water and two of the establishments that John had mentioned: Johnny’s Reef and Tony’s Pier. The names alone seemed to call for a showdown.

From the outside, Johnny’s had the rundown, low-ceilinged red brick construction of the elementary school I went to for grades four through six. And though it felt like surely we should be in the middle of nowhere after spending so much time on public transportation, Johnny’s was hopping, with people happily occupying dozens of plastic picnic tables both inside and out. A woman with a dog whom we had spoken to on the street had mentioned that these casual spots by the water were good for “a basket of shrimp and a piña colada,” and though neither of us could remember the last time we’d imbibed a piña colada, that seemed somehow apropos, and that’s what we ordered. I got the drinks while Jason watched our shrimp go from raw to steamed in the span of two minutes and get drenched in a great quantity of garlic butter in even less time.

Okay, confession time. It had been many years since a shrimp had passed my lips, save for the tiny gnat-sized ones that sometimes seem to show up like magic in Asian dishes. But, when in Rome…so made bold by colada, I ate a few, telling myself that they were sort of just like sea bugs. They were chewier than I remembered, but undeniably tasty. I would be lying, though, if I didn’t admit that I would eat a shoe if it were dunked in lemon garlic butter.

Drunk on rum and melted butter, we staggered across the street to Tony’s to do a proper taste comparison. Tony’s specialty is all things deep-fried, so Jason went with the crab cake lunch special (he considers himself something of an expert after spending a childhood near the Chesapeake Bay), and I went with the onion rings (I consider myself something of an onion ring expert after growing up in onion country). Though Jason was initially skeptical of the atmosphere of Tony’s, he admitted that the very high ratio of fresh crabmeat to breading in the cakes won him over. Second confession: I tried these, too, and actually liked the sweet, creamy taste of them better than the shrimp, though that was too bad since I felt worse about eating crabs, which seem slightly more sentient than shrimp in my estimation. Anyway, my judgment might have been impaired at that point, because the five-dollar piña coladas at Tony’s were kick-you-in-the-chest strong, and I was mostly staring into the distance and setting a personal best time for onion ring consumption. So I suppose until further tasting can be scheduled, preferably with more discerning judges, we’ll have to call it a tie.

The sea gulls and the pigeons, the tropical drinks and the Chinese man selling bootleg DVDs, the laid-back vibe and the undercurrent of hustle as we sprinted for the bus home—it was all somehow perfectly New York City and perfectly Key West, all rolled into one. And who could ask for more than that to kick off a Labor Day weekend?

Johnny’s Reef. 2 City Island Ave., Bronx, NY 10464. (718) 885-2086.
Tony’s Pier. 1 City Island Ave., Bronx, NY10464. (718) 885-1424.