Info: 1186 3rd St S, Naples, FL 34102

Because I have no original ideas for Plops, you are getting another restaurant review. I ate at a few places in Naples recently, so this may be the first of a few in a series. For one lunch, I went to Sea Salt, located in downtown Naples between the bay and the gulf. You could smell the saltwater and waspiness in the air, and you could hear the chatter of retellings of Fox News stories. At the table was a small dish of three piles of salt. According to the waiter, the leftmost salt (from my perspective. I am unable to see the world through the eyes of others) was a pink Himalayan sea salt. The center salt was an Italian saffron salt, and the rightmost salt was a smoked Hawaiian salt. The pink salt was the saltiest and tasted like very salty salt. Th saffron salt had no discernable saffron taste and was more reminiscent of less salty salt. The smoked salt came across as somewhat salty with a slight smoke flavor. I know, I can’t believe it either.

The salts were supposed to be a topping for the food, which was entirely too salty to begin with. One of the first things our waiter said was “it’s all about the salt and nothing else.” I thought it was a fun little joke, but that seemed to be the true motto of the establishment. I ordered a tuna bowl, so let’s see how they did. This will be a short one today.

Entree:

Blackened Tuna Bowl [Red cabbage, baby romaine, sun-dried tomato, cashews, cucumber seaweed salad, soy-mustard dressing] – $24

• The Good Shit: While expensive for the portion size, there was a fair amount of tuna here, which was seared well in a teriyaki glaze with sesame seeds. The tuna had a lot of flavor and tested very fresh. There were plenty of cashews, and the cabbage and lettuce gave the dish a nice crunch.
• The Nit Pick: Boy was this dish salty. The combination of the seaweed salad, tuna glaze, and soy-mustard dressing (I couldn’t taste any mustard) overloaded the palate with salt. I could also detect fish sauce in this dish. I’m not sure to which component it was added. While I like fish sauce, it added to the salt content. Another thing I didn’t like was that the bowl seemed to be pre-mixed, so I couldn’t sample any components on their own. This hurt the dish because I was only able to find a few strands of seaweed salad buried in the cabbage, and I would have liked to try it on its own. The last nitpick was the small portion. As mentioned, the portion of tuna was generous, but a little more cheap cabbage and lettuce wouldn’t have killed anybody.

The Verdict:

While the food tastes good, it is quite salty and ultimately forgettable for the high price. The restaurant is fairly laid back and might be worth a try, but no need to rush to get there. You can get better food for a much lower price. Sea Salt gets 3 Plops for this visit.