Lee Roy Selmon's - Your Home Away From Home for Wonderful Southern Comfort food

I’ve a life long love affair with Southern food. Lee Roy Selmon’s comfort food touches a special place in many Southern heart of hearts. I grew up with the world’s best fried chicken made by Eunice Mayberry. In my early teens, I grew taller and ran fast with a daily diet of grits, venison, boar, fruit cobblers and all types of Southern style vegetables-cooked with butter, ham hocks and rich spicing. The past few weeks I have been savoring Edna Lewis’s The Taste of Country Cooking, and Virginia Willis’ Bon Appetit, Y’al." I recently had lunch at the Farmers Market Restaurant in Fort Myers, and tasted half a dozen Country delights!. I can get seriously homesick for Southern cooking. The real cure comes when a handful of friends schedule dinner at Fort Myers at Lee Roy Selmon’s. Hellelujah!  Serious eats!

Dinner starts with a tall cool glass of sweet tea for one friend. I love the John Daly, a tall mix of firefly Sweet Tea Vodka and lemonade for $4.99. Light and refreshing, I favor it over the sweet tea. I also  enjoy the All-Pro Margarita with Sauza Premium gold Tequila for, get this, only $3.50!

For the summer, many margaritas have been $3.50, too! Try strawberry, mango, raspberry or melon. Draft beers are $1.99, and a domestic bucket of 5 bottled beers is $14.
We start light with the chicken tacos, served juicy hot and tender.

Fish Tacos are a generous order, also served hot and tender, each mouthful is a delight.

Ahi tuna is peppercorn crusted and pan seared ahi tua, served with a side of bibb lettuce and roasted red peppers, yellow beets, bacon bits and crumbled blue cheese tossed in a roasted garlic Dijon vinaigrette. Ther’s also soy sauce, wasabi and ginger.

 For $7, it’s the equal in delicious quality of any seared tuna served around, at any price.

Crispy seasoned sweet potato French fries are truly crisp with tender insides, are served with cane sugar vinaigrette dip. For $6 it is fine for a party of four!

Selmon brothers wings are the best in SW Florida, bar none! For $7.79, these ten wings are marinated for 24 hours, slow smoked, then grilled and served with Oklahoma spicy sauce. The Best!

I buy an extra order to take home!
Pulled pork sliders or the smoked brisket sliders (3 for $6.49) have tender meat drizzled with Selmon’s molasses- based sweet Kansas City BBQ sauce, then topped with apple jack coleslaw. The Kansas City sauce has its sweetness from caramelized onions and molasses. I prefer the pork sliders; Texans might prefer the luscious brisket. Different strokes….

New for this year-salads, salads,  salads. Have a different one every visit, they are that different. An order of Pulled pork salad is large for $8.99. The pork is served on a bed of iceberg and romaine lettuce, wth sweet corn, roasted red peppers, carrots, cabbage, Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheeses, with fried green tomatoes on top.

Drizzled with Selmon’s chipotle vinaigrette dressing, it’s a meal for two. The pulled pork melts in your mouth. The fried green tomatoes are light, crisp, and some of the best I’ve had in the South. I wouldn’t have thought to have paired pulled pork with a salad, however it works! People who never would have ordered the fried green tomatoes taste ‘em, and love them.

This visit I didn’t have the citrus glazed salmon. I’ve had it twice before. I’m here to tell you that it’s one of my top dishes, along with the heavenly tender and juicy Selmon brothers’ smoked wings, with their crispy slightly charred outside The smoked chicken salad or the chopped salad are take-home favorites at $9.99, enough to cover two meals..

On prior visits I also had the Steak Selmon style, with a delicious garlic-Parmesan butter melted on top of the charred steak. It’s a must have.

 This is a trick that fancy steakhouses will probably soon copy. Order the Parmesan-butter grilled on top of the steak, not on the side. Grilled is more luscious. My friend ordered it for take out with corn bread casserole and cheese and bacon grits (two “must have” sides.) He called and said it made two big meals. The cheese grits is a thick creamy thick cheese blend, a meal in itself, with a touch of heat that sneaks up 20 seconds later, making you want more, and more, and more…

Lee Roy’s customers, especially during summer, wanted a tasty and lighter meal all around so LRS started creative salads. Have a mahi mahi or tuna dinner one night, and the steak on another, for healthy variety. Your mom would be proud as you finish the salad part!
Dynamite mahi mahi sandwich has tempura fried fish topped with lump crab dynamite sauce, with mayo and wasabi. It’s full of taste for $10.

Orange ginger glazed grilled chicken breast sandwich (7.50) is light with pepper jack cheese, roasted green peppers , bibb lettuce, frizzled onions and orange-glaze dipping sauce on the side. I like the spiciness of the dipping sauce.

Lemon and dill grilled Mahi Mahi ($11) is served on fresh avocado, fresh feta cheese, grape tomatoes toasted pine nuts, salad tossed with a sun dried tomato vinaigrette. It’s to die for tender fish and crisp salad! . LRS is as comfortable with fish and meats.

Sirloin steak wedge salad ($10) is cooked to order.

The steak is even more attractive with a wedges of bibb lettuce, sprinkled with bacon, hard boiled eggs, blue cheese crumbles, sweet red onion and sun dried tomatoes, drizzled with balsamic-Blue cheese mixture.

I like a lighter meal in the fall, and don’t want to cook as much at home as I do in the busy tourist season. This is my “to go” dining spot when I’m in Fort Myers for quality, price and taste. It’a pleasure to come here and have a variety to choose from.

Managing Partner Greg Stamper stopped by during the meal. He’s got a friendly manner and a great memory of folks-he quickly can tell the newcomers from the veterans at any table in the house. I recognized some servers, some of them can remember what you ordered even several months later. It’s the same faces since my first visit 2 years ago. There’s a team work at play here. Servers pay attention to details, and you benefit.

My favorite dessert has been the peach cobbler,

however on this visit the luscious bread pudding took top honors for me, as the cobbler became a close second. It's a meal in itself, a "must-have."

The multilayered chocolate cake was my chocaholic’s second choice. She also picked the bread pudding as numero uno.

The bread pudding is rich warm, luscious comfort food. Delicately seasoned.raisin bread, heavy cream, perhaps cinnamon and nutmeg-it’s the spicing that makes it!

You want to get an extra one to take home to savor, mouthful by seductive mouthful, in the privacy of your home. One young lass alluded to it as “a little “O”” ….; I don’t know what she means!. Guys, it’s a must-have, “to-die-for!” Next time- pecan pie. May ed egg white for binding?

There's all sorts of specials -½ priced appetizers Monday thru Thursday. Lots of TV’s, the place is packed with sports fans who know great food at great wallet friendly prices. Gluten free diet? They have over 25 gluten free dishes-dive in!

Lee Roy Selmon’s food is one of the Best Buys in Lee and Collier Counties for price (nearly all items under $9.99), rich Southern taste, and very good service. No one else does comfort food or family friendly food as well as this. Please excuse me, writing this has taken away all will power, and I’m off to the fridge for some more of Lee Roy’s best!

5056 Daniels Parkway, 690-3287, leeroyselmons.com/