you know those places that you drive by all the time, they're en route to something you're constantly en route to - like by the entrance to the 836 from Douglas in this case, the places you always mean to get around to but don't actually think you'll ever decide to go to. What I mean to say is, I finally went somewhere that I'd long been meaning to try - Don Camaron on Douglas, right by the Magic City Casino (another one on my list).

Don Camaron has one of the best logos in all of Miami history - a lounging shrimp in a chef's hat holding a lime and looking kind of drunk. There's a kind of impending doom for this shrimp, who's looking way to happy to be advertising an establishment built around eating his brothers and sisters.

Full disclosure - I have tried Don Camaron before at the very first game, Belen vs Columbus, at the Marlins Park where they have an outpost in the food court. I ate a very delicious pan con minuta sandwich that gave me a kind of false hope about the stadium being a place I'd go to chill and eat a fish sandwich while drinking a beer and semi-watching baseball. Spoiler alert - that didn't happen. But I did find an easier, less baseball-oriented way to get my pan con minuta fix.

I was surprised by quite a few things at Don Cameron. First I was surprised by the vibe. It's a nicer place than I expected. It feels like it had a nice interior overhaul done pretty recently. It feels like a dive-y fish restaurant should - it's nautical and authentic feeling without making you worry too much about food poisoning; which is never far from my mind when I'm eating out, no matter how nice the restaurant.

I was surprised by how many people were eating lunch there. It was packed on a Tuesday at about 1 PM.

I was surprised by the menu. It has a pretty comprehensive fish menu: aguja, pargo, salmon, tilapia, pescado entero, emperador. There's a heart selection of mains like fish with pico de gallo and chimichurri or paella. But then it takes a kind of Peruvian turn - ceviche, sure, but also Asian-influenced Arroz Chaufa. I'd never tried Arroz Chaufa, which is described as a "Peruvian-style fried rice served with sweet plantains," but I had just heard about the Japanese and Chinese influence in Peruvian food on NPR the other say so we went ahead and ordered that and the classic pan con minuta sandwich. It was good, really good. And it was like $12 for both of those and an iced tea with was really, really nice.

I'll be back at Don Camaron and I'm not going to wait until I go back to a Marlins game to do it.

don camaron