Seafood as fresh as can be on Cooking Channel’s ‘Beach Bites’

Whether it’s a beachfront clam shack or a dockside lobster joint, unpretentious waterfront dining is something we all love.

And they all have three things in common: They’re on the water, their prices are usually inexpensive and the seafood is always fresh. It’s exactly the type of off-the-beaten-path place Katie Lee looks for when scoping out locations for her Cooking Channel series “Beach Bites.”

“I like to go to places that are easily accessible for our viewers,” she explains, “so somewhere that they can easily get to and that has a reputation for food. So I’m looking for a destination that not only has beautiful beaches but also has a real sense of culinary personality, so to speak, so that you get a taste of what locals would have.”

As Season 3 of the culinary/travel series kicks off Thursday, June 7, Lee is back out on the road exploring the shores of the U.S., looking for fine dining near water in locales such as Charleston, S.C., where she got to eat some uber-fresh fried shrimp right off the boats; Catalina Island, Calif., where she tried the carnitas nachos; Nassau in the Bahamas, where she dined on hogfish and conch salad; and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, the season premiere in which she sampled the crab gumbo.

“We went to this place Mary Mahoney’s and the gumbo is incredible,” she says. “They’re famous for it and that place has been there forever . ... You walk in and feel the history. And everybody who’s there is in a good mood and everybody is talking and you chat with the different tables. And the gumbo – the secret of it is it’s just so fresh. It comes right out of the Gulf that’s right across the street, and the crab is so sweet and delicate, mixed with the gumbo spices.” Later in the season in the Bahamas, Lee eats at an Arawak Cay seafood shack called Goldie’s, which makes a conch salad with conch as fresh as can possibly be served.

“The conch is still alive when they take it out to make the conch salad,” Lee explains, “so it’s super fresh. And they chop it up right there and serve it to you in a conch shell.

“I think Nassau is one of those places people think of as a cruise ship port,” she continues, “and they don’t really get outside of just that area where the cruise ship pulls in. And if you just explore just a little bit more, there is so much to see and it’s such a local flavor.”