saw the menu for gulf shore steamers in our hotel lobby. they had raw oysters on the half shell for like $8 a dozen. on the menu under the description, it says ""raw oysters, premium select fresh"". the restaurant is behind 2 of the large souvenir shops in gulf shores so it seemed to be in a good area. pulled up on a friday night at 8 pm & were greeted immediately. we sat outside where there was one other occupied table. only 3 tables were being used inside. seemed slow but it was january 2nd so people were still probably on holiday. sat down & immediately ordered one water, one beer & a dozen oysters on the half shell. we casually asked the people next to us if the food was good. they had just eaten the steamed royal red shrimp and said they were great. less than 1 1/2 minutes later, our oysters arrived. we were VERY skeptical since rarely do you see a dozen oysters freshly shucked, detached & delivered in less than a minute. we then began to inspect them: the smell from the oysters & the shells was overpowering. the shells were neat & clean like they hadn't been in the water for some time...if at all. NONE of the oysters were connected to the shell but freely sitting in them. they didn't look like they fit in any of the shells. they were ice cold, along with the shells, & dry as a bone. freshly shucked oysters have sea water in them. one shell had 3 oysters in it!! i've never had a shell with 3 oysters in it... there was one oyster sitting in the ice, not even in a shell. we went in & asked the management how fresh the oysters were & if they were shucked fresh per order. they were very nice but stated that the ""box had just been opened yesterday"". we were shown the buy slip from ""the monger"". the manager asked if we would like to order something else, we politely asked for them to be removed from the table & the bill & they quickly took care of it.
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