Needing a few days away from western MA and work, and with the promise of raw seafood, I hopped in my car for the not quite four hour drive to Edgecomb last Thursday. I grabbed a beer, some cold sake, and an order of the addictive Brussel's sprouts at continual favorite Pai Men Miyake with my sister's boyfriend on the way, before arriving in Lincoln County just in time to take a very brief nap before my step-mom finished making a creamy broccoli soup and a platter of croque monsieur sandwiches. I highly suggest this combination, as it bears a lot of similarities to my personal specialty.
I spent a lazy day in Edgecomb before heading south to meet up with my step-mom to select oysters and clams for the night. Harbor Fish has been featured on just about every television show that filmed an episode on food or fish in southern Maine, and for good reason; it is where the locals who know fish go, because they have the best, freshest, and most reasonably priced fish you can imagine. We grabbed 18 oysters deriving from Maine to Massachusetts, along with six clams. If you like cooked clams, you should try them raw; not everyone enjoys the texture, but the flavor is incredibly powerful and delightful. If you do not like them cooked...well, then you definitely won't raw.
Thankfully it was cold enough to just leave the oysters with some ice in the car for a couple hours, so we adjourned to J's Oyster, a bar on the Portland Pier that, during the month of February, offers free oysters to its customers beginning at 4:00pm until they reach a certain amount. They are initially given away three on a plate per person, then it drops to two per plate as more people pack the bar, and are served with a wedge of lemon, some oyster crackers, and a dollop of cocktail sauce. The oysters are by no means top of the line, and they don't do much more than open them (in fact, the oyster meat itself is still attached to the shell), but hey, they're free, and they're fresh, and they taste good. We left before they ran out of the freebies, so I can't tell you how many you can end up getting, but I would definitely suggest going with someone who either does not like raw oysters, or at least likes them in limited quantities. My step-mom likes them, but not more than a couple a night, so I had the majority of hers, ending up having 18 myself. This was, of course, just the prelude to the couple dozen other raw mollusks we had when we got back home.
After polishing off the oysters we got at Harbor, we went to dinner at The Cockeyed Gull, but the experience was nowhere near as impressive as on the Fourth of July. I liked my meal (sesame crusted salmon with a Wasabi aioli, seaweed "garni" aka seaweed salad, mixed vegetables, and white rice), but I was really the only person who was not completely disappointed. We started with a scallop appetizer that was actually pretty successful, and reasonably well cooked, but things went downhill from there. My salmon was tasty but overcooked, the white rice was beyond boring, and while the seaweed salad was good it was nothing better or worse than what you could get in any sushi joint in America. In fact, the best part of the meal for me were the carrots in the mixed vegetables, which consisted of them and some broccoli florets. Their beer options were very limited, with a Baxter Brewing Company Stowaway IPA being the only really local and craft option. It was good, but nothing special; I have had better from Baxter before. The beer was canned, not on tap, and while this is one of the many breweries doing the canned thing right, it is just not the same as a good draft beer. Apparently during the winter the Gull loses some of its staff, and the owner does the cooking; she is a nice lady, and has some interesting ideas, but is not as creative as some of her summer chefs and not as talented either. I would say this is still a great summer destination, but I will be avoiding it during the off-season.
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Showing posts with label Peaks Island. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peaks Island. Show all posts
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Monday, July 8, 2013
Cockeyed Gull (Peaks Island, ME)
Located a short walk from the Casco Bay Lines ferry landing on Peaks Island, the Cockeyed Gull restaurant offers decent to good food, acceptable alcohol, and some truly stunning views from their back deck. A beautiful place to sit and enjoy a meal, my step-family and I had a very nice Independence Day dinner there, and as long as you order the correct things, it is my best recommendation if you are visiting Portland and make a trip out to the island, or are vacationing there already.
**Full disclosure: my step-sister worked as a waitress at the Gull for a couple summers, but then, she's worked everywhere else on Peaks Island as well, so I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the restaurants, of which there are only a few, and can offer an unbiased opinion.
We started by sharing a few appetizers amongst the table, including a couple orders of oysters on the half shell, a beet salad, and a scallop special. The oysters were, I believe, from the Damariscotta River, my personal favorite locale for oysters, where they do not grow to be very big, but are exceptionally flavorful, with a vibrant sweetness and brininess. They were served with a "deconstructed" mignonette sauce, some traditional cocktail sauce, and my favorite, fiery and pungent horseradish. The beet salad was delicious as well, but it was the scallops that were truly remarkable. Perfectly cooked, something that rarely occurs, they were not seared but rather, I presume, poached, and had such a delicate texture that it is difficult to describe it. It was served with tomatoes and other vegetables that were wonderful as well.
My step-sister encouraged me to stay away from the more Italian inspired dishes on the menu, so I went with the Potato Crusted Haddock. I love haddock, which along with cod and hake is one of a few thoroughly fantastic, completely under-appreciated fish, and potato crusting is both a neat concept and really tasty. The Gull did a nice job with this, as the fish was nicely cooked, possibly just a hair over, but barely enough to even notice it; the potato crust was crispy and succulent, and while it pulled a little away from the fish, it was much better than how I have had it in other restaurants, where the crust barely stays attached past the first bite. Served with roasted acorn squash, which was exactly what it should be, sweet and savory all at once, it was a good side dish. The dish was huge, with a giant slab of fish and about half of a squash. My step-sister got the same, and enjoyed hers as well.
The other two entrees at the table were a special scallop dish and a lobster pasta dish, the first of which was successful while the latter was a failure. The special thinly sliced scallop crudo served with basil and crostini, which was delicious, but the basil overwhelmed everything. It was a very small amount of food for an entree, but considering how much food we had ordered, that was not a problem. The lobster pasta dish had far, far too much sauce (a simple red cream sauce) and not nearly enough lobster, so that everything seemed drowned and overshadowed.
For dessert, I went with carrot cake, which I was promised would be the best I had ever had; it was not. It was, however, quite good, but could not live up to David Burke Prime's version, which had far less sweetness and far more actual carrot to it. This did not have anything that felt like carrot texturally, and the frosting, of which there was an abundance, was sweeter than I would have preferred. It was still probably the second best I have ever had, but that is not necessarily saying much.
This was a very nice meal, but for four people, it was not cheap, even with a couple bottles of wine, a beer for me, a couple cocktails and some port to end the night, so I would not recommend this for those who do not have high end prices in mind. That said, if you order the right thing, and go at the right time, it is well worth it, as you can see from the pictures below. There was a nice view of the fireworks at the end as well; unfortunately, Portland really dropped the ball on the show this year, but the view was still beautiful.
******
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**Full disclosure: my step-sister worked as a waitress at the Gull for a couple summers, but then, she's worked everywhere else on Peaks Island as well, so I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the restaurants, of which there are only a few, and can offer an unbiased opinion.
We started by sharing a few appetizers amongst the table, including a couple orders of oysters on the half shell, a beet salad, and a scallop special. The oysters were, I believe, from the Damariscotta River, my personal favorite locale for oysters, where they do not grow to be very big, but are exceptionally flavorful, with a vibrant sweetness and brininess. They were served with a "deconstructed" mignonette sauce, some traditional cocktail sauce, and my favorite, fiery and pungent horseradish. The beet salad was delicious as well, but it was the scallops that were truly remarkable. Perfectly cooked, something that rarely occurs, they were not seared but rather, I presume, poached, and had such a delicate texture that it is difficult to describe it. It was served with tomatoes and other vegetables that were wonderful as well.
My step-sister encouraged me to stay away from the more Italian inspired dishes on the menu, so I went with the Potato Crusted Haddock. I love haddock, which along with cod and hake is one of a few thoroughly fantastic, completely under-appreciated fish, and potato crusting is both a neat concept and really tasty. The Gull did a nice job with this, as the fish was nicely cooked, possibly just a hair over, but barely enough to even notice it; the potato crust was crispy and succulent, and while it pulled a little away from the fish, it was much better than how I have had it in other restaurants, where the crust barely stays attached past the first bite. Served with roasted acorn squash, which was exactly what it should be, sweet and savory all at once, it was a good side dish. The dish was huge, with a giant slab of fish and about half of a squash. My step-sister got the same, and enjoyed hers as well.
The other two entrees at the table were a special scallop dish and a lobster pasta dish, the first of which was successful while the latter was a failure. The special thinly sliced scallop crudo served with basil and crostini, which was delicious, but the basil overwhelmed everything. It was a very small amount of food for an entree, but considering how much food we had ordered, that was not a problem. The lobster pasta dish had far, far too much sauce (a simple red cream sauce) and not nearly enough lobster, so that everything seemed drowned and overshadowed.
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| Carrot Cake |
This was a very nice meal, but for four people, it was not cheap, even with a couple bottles of wine, a beer for me, a couple cocktails and some port to end the night, so I would not recommend this for those who do not have high end prices in mind. That said, if you order the right thing, and go at the right time, it is well worth it, as you can see from the pictures below. There was a nice view of the fireworks at the end as well; unfortunately, Portland really dropped the ball on the show this year, but the view was still beautiful.
******
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