James Beard Award-Winning Shack

Scribbled on a whiteboard that hangs outside of a shack built of wooden planks with cracked paint, dry erase markers list off the options at a restaurant in South Thomaston, Maine. However, the menu isn’t just a list, it’s an outline of a culture; and the shack isn’t just a restaurant, it’s a James Beard Restaurant Award winner.

Being the only restaurant in the area that has BYOB, empty wine bottles advertise this option around the perimeter of its “indoor” seating area. The room was quaint, but, after reviewing our options, we decided to dine al fresco....

I ordered the crab melt, and, based off of its rather pathetic first impression, you must realize how great of a leap this melt had to take to become appealing. 

With only pulled crab and white cheddar stacked atop what seemed like a hamburger bun, this sandwich may have been the best thing I’ve ever eaten off of a paper plate.

The crabmeat was hand-pulled freshly after ordering. It was so succulent that the crab must have been tossed with a little mayo, butter, or some other holy condiment. One slice of cheese – barely softened – was all it took to transcend this sandwich to “melt” status. Served open-faced, I could barely make out the butter on the delicately toasted bun, but you better believe it was there.

To ask why this sandwich was so good would be to ask why butter is so good. Dumb question. With a bag of Lays Classic potato chips, this sandwich served as a testament to how exquisite simplicity can be.

Waterman’s Beach Lobster

343 Waterman's Beach Road, South Thomaston, Maine


wblobsta@midcoast.com

207-596-7819 * 207-594-7518

http://www.watermansbeachlobster.com

The King of Clubs

Are you ready for a throwdown? Well, Lynn Archer was when she beat Bobby Flay on his Food Network competition series Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and I sure was when I heard the news.

When I visited the Brass Compass Café in Rockland, Maine, I didn’t even open the menu.  I simply ordered the famous dish, unbuttoned my pants and braced myself.

The King of Clubs is a lobster BLT with 1 ¼-lbs. cooked Maine lobster meat mixed with “just enough [mayo] to hold the lobster meat together.” I was holding all of Maine’s glory within three slices of bread, and the most miraculous part? – not simply the lobster, but rather the BLT-ingredient synergism.

In Maine, it’s hard to stack up to the glorious empire of its beloved shell fish, but with some magical twist of BLT fate, each ingredient held its own – so much so, in fact, that I feel it is degrading to abbreviate them. With each bite there was the buttery toasted bread, the fresh tomato slices, the crunchy lettuce leaves, and the thick slabs of bacon all proudly standing next to, not accompanying, the succulent lobster meat.

From this day forward, any ordinary sandwich can be called a BLT, but at the Brass Compass Café, I dub thee a Lobster Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich.

Brass Compass Café

305 Main Street

Rockland, ME 04841-3303

(207) 596-5960

In the Land of Lobsta

Over the past 3 days, I've consumed 4 lobsters, and I wasn’t even trying. Port Clyde, Maine, confirmed every Maine stereotype I had, and then some.

Unlike other culinary letdowns, like the “edible botanical gardens” in the Bronx that turned out to be a dull exhibit of Martha Stewart’s herb garden, Maine held up to the hype, offering lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The Dip Net restaurant, at the coast and heart of Port Clyde, serves up a whole 1 ¼-lb. lobster, freshly caught just yards from the kitchen, for a little over $20. Lying across a deep tin bucket, this steaming crustacean isn’t sitting on a bed of ice. Pick up your lobster and you’ll find quite the entourage – about 4 lbs. of steamed clams and mussels.

Once I finished sucking meat out of the lobster’s legs, I shifted gears to focus on the steamers. The “Maine way” is to first dip them in salt water, washing off any remaining ocean debris, and then in melted butter. Fresh, salty and delicious: a deadly combination that lead me to finish off the entire bucket, in addition to devouring the whole lobster.

Fresh steamed lobster, mussels and clams, cracked open by hand, served over a plastic checkered table cloth, can only be considered classy in one place – Maine.

The Dip Net Restaurant

Route 131

Port Clyde, ME

207.372.6307

http://dipnetrestaurant.blogspot.com/