Snag seafood sublime off Conch Queen food truck
Snag seafood sublime off the Conch Queen food truck
Thompson: Graham family serves up Caribbean classics in Apopka.
“You gotta pound that stuff,” a chef friend told me. “Like, hard.”
We were talking cracked conch. It’s a ubiquitous dish in the Bahamas, something akin to fish and chips in Britain. Just better. Because duh, you’re in the Bahamas.
The intersection at 3780 Ocoee-Apopka Road in Apopka is not entirely unlike a semi-rural Bahamian crossroads. A small, freestanding gas station that looks to have been there since the middle of the last century houses a modest minimart. I hopped out for a can of coconut water while idling in its tiny lot — something I might do while waiting outside an island conch shack. Which, in a way, I was. The Conch Queen’s trailer is a new-era version — mobile and graphic-wrapped, not thatchroofed, but the conch they’re cracking here has almost certainly been pounded (i.e. “cracked”) hard. That’s what makes it so tender. It’s a skill that’s been passed down to LaRondra Graham courtesy of her dad, LaRon, whose family hails from the Bahamian blue-water blip of Bimini, a tiny paradise off the coast of South Florida.
Apt, then, that the Grahams park their truck in the Paradise Heights neighborhood of Apopka.
LaRondra’s mother, Mildred, mans the kitchen, too, as does dad. LaRon is a retired Orange County fire chief (firefighters get a 10 percent discount at the Conch Queen truck with
valid ID, by the way) who after 27 years on the job — and many more serving up Miami-style Caribbean classics to friends and family — handed the ball to his daughter. Sort of.
“He’s the official chief chef,” says Mildred. Folks have been finding them organically via social media and the well-trafficked road, “but my husband passes out cards everywhere he goes. I mean,
everywhere,” she says with a laugh. “Not a week goes by where someone doesn’t come by and say they met him at the grocery store or auto shop.”
I’m not surprised the chief chef has pride. That conch ($15, includes sides) — which can be crazy tough if handled improperly — is instead crazy tender, with just the right amount of chew. A light squeeze of lime, a little of their housemade Goombay sauce and you can almost feel the Caribbean breeze coming out of your car’s AC vents.
“We put a lot of love in the food,” says LaRondra, whose degree in hospitality management took her through convention center, fine dining and fast-casual gigs before landing her in the kitchen with her parents (who seem like they’d be fun to spend the day with, even in close quarters with a deep fryer going full throttle).
What’s coming out of it, though, is the real fun.
Take the Miami-style conch fritters ($11), of which I am a fervent new advocate. Most fritters — done in round balls — are a crapshoot at best. The Conch Queen’s are generously sized and four to an order, flat and beautifully seasoned, loaded with fine-diced veggies and two preparations of conch: ground and chunked. Meat in every bite and an array of textures, from the chew of the snail (yes, conch is sea snail) to the crisp outside and the tender center.
“My husband’s mother perfected them,” Mildred explains. “We started trying to do the balls because they’re more popular in Central Florida, but the customers preferred them this way, and we agreed. It was better to go back to what we know.”
I’ll never eat a round fritter again. (I was never a big fan, anyway. Too many meatless mouthfuls of filler.)
These are delish, made better with a bit of blotter time (grab some napkins) to siphon off some of the oil. They reheat nicely in the toaster oven, as does the cracked conch. Note: Do
not heat up conch leftovers in the microwave; they’ll go unpleasantly chewy.
Flat is how the Grahams ate these fritters growing up in Miami. They met as kids, attended the same college, and moved to Orlando when Mildred got a job in 1984 with the Orlando Sentinel and worked there for a decade, covering an array of beats “from education to minority affairs to residential real estate.”
They’re hoping to cover more real estate with the truck, though they’ve got interest in brick and mortar and even getting some of their products — fish marinade, frozen fritter batter and that Goombay sauce, so popular they had to start charging for extra servings — on store shelves.
The conch salad ($11) is a winner, too, especially for those looking for something that isn’t fried. It’s made fresh, every day, often more than once. I can vouch it does well in the fridge, too, “though after the third day the conch may get tough due to the citrus juice,” says Mildred.
Fear not, yours probably won’t last that long.
I opted for the conch topper, a $5 add-on, but next time, I’ll try it with fruit, which they’ll toss on for $2.
“A lot of folks want something a little sweeter and for just a couple dollars more the fruit topper — a mix of mango and pineapple and special seasoning — really enhances it,” says Mildred.
Although the truck has regulars — both those who walk from their homes in the neighborhood and others who drive from as far away as Sanford — many show up as conch or even seafood noobs. For these folks, LaRondra created something special: the Queen Fries ($18).
“It’s a sampler of our most popular items,” she tells me.
And let me tell you, this crazy Caribbean poutine is ridiculous.
“We take our Cajunstyle fries and put the fried conch and jumbo shrimp on top and all of that is topped with lump crab.”
A tangy Goombay drizzle pulls it all together so much we dispatched of half the box in the car. Fried is best fresh, after all, though of all the fried things we’ve brought home in this plague-ridden year, the leftovers of this masterfully cooked seafood dish held up best. We destroyed the rest straight out of the box, which was still sitting on the peeled-back bag on the kitchen counter. Conch and crab notwithstanding, those were some powerfully good fried shrimp.
It’s simple stuff — but fresh and finely executed. Some is pounded hard. All is delivered friendly. Just how you’d expect in the islands.
If you go: Open 12-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 3780 Ocoee-Apopka Road in Apopka, 321-297-3519; conchqueen.com