“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. Continue reading →