Fox's Lobster House and One More Lobster Roll

On Father's day Gail and I took a trip up to Maine on a quest for fried lobster. Gail's cousin posted to FaceBook about a fried lobster she had at Fox's Lobster House in York Beach. For a few weeks we had this stuck in our heads and couldn't find a place more local to try it.

It turned into a great trip. We went to a dairy farm and bought raw milk and eggs. We stopped at a few breweries including the eclectic Earth Eagle Brewings in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We walked over the world's smallest suspension bridge: The Wiggly Bridge in York Maine. We walked on the beach. We got a soft serve. We stopped at a great candy shop: Harbor Candy Shop in Ogunquit, Maine. And, right across the parking lot from Fox's is the scenic Nubble Light. All in all, a perfect day.

The fried lobster was exactly the decadence we expected. Tender fried pieces of chunky lobster tail, dipped in drawn butter. It was sweet and sinfully rich. Amazing! Since we had recently done a side-by-side of lobster rolls, it seemed only fitting to get Fox's lobster roll too. That roll beat all the others we had tried, although not by much. It had a good New England-style roll that could have been a touch fresher, but otherwise it had a good mound of lobster with good salt and mayonnaise levels, and just the right amount of lettuce. At $18.95, it wasn't the least expensive, but it did come with a generous portion of onion rings. It was table service, so overall not too bad.

To put a cap on this lobster trek, we had to try McDonald's seasonal lobster roll. It was priced at $8.99, and probably had 4 ounces of meat. They didn't skimp. The roll was toasted, and like so many of them, could have been a touch fresher. They had a good balance of mayonnaise and celery salt, but overdid the lettuce. That's not such a huge problem after we picked it off. Overall, we've had better, and we had worse. At $9 it was an excellent value.

Try the World Box: Sweden

The Sweden box was a bit incoherent. It had plenty of treats, but not enough ingredients for a Swedish meal. The recipe card included recipes for salmon and dill toasts, Swedish dumplings and ham & cheese toasts. There was also a pointer to a Swedish meatball recipe. The closest thing to an ingredient for these dishes in the box were the crackers and lingonberry jelly to garnish the dumplings.




We did make the toasts, and dumplings. They were good, but not enough for a meal. We augmented it with a Swedish shrimp sandwich called räkmacka that I learned about on a business trip to Sweden. Räkmacka is a pile of tiny shrimp with a lump of mayo and egg on the side. People mix as much of the egg and mayo as they want into each bite. Together these dishes made a mini Swedish smorgasbord.

Sweden also has a tradition of fika, which is a mid-day sweet snack with coffee. Swedes will drop everything in the middle of the workday: "Time for fika." The box included cookies, licorice, fudge and coffee in support of fika. Swedes like strong coffee, and have barely heard of decaf.


The box included:

Mörsjö Deli gourmet crisps - A thick salty cracker, that was good. Our package was a little bit crunched up.

Nordic Rosehip Fudge - This very soft fudge was flavored more like penuche. It was very good, but we didn't taste any rose flavors.

Tillmans Elderflower saft syrup - This was the star of the box. A little of this in a glass of seltzer made for a deliciously refreshing non-alcoholic cocktail.

Gille Double Chocolate Crisps - This was an interestingly elaborate cookie with two cookie layers enrobed in chocolate sandwiched with some caramel.

Löfbergs Kharisma Coffee - Good strong Swedish coffee.

Hafi Lingonberry Preserves - Lingonberry jelly just yells Sweden to me. It's sort of sweet and sour like a mix of strawberry and cranberry.

Lakritsfabriken Sweet Licorice - A good, strong licorice with a slightly salty flavor. This was a softer version of the center of a Good & Plenty.

Liss Ellas Sweet and Hot Mustard - This was a decent hot and sweet mustard with big mustard grains.

Three Lobster Rolls Compared on National Lobster Day

Yesterday was national lobster day. Gail went on a quest and got us three different lobster rolls from Wegmans (left), D'Angelo's (middle) and Roche Bros. (right). She tried to get one from Market Basket, but they didn't have one.

Here are the results of our taste test:

Wegman's ($10): 4oz. of lobster meat. The New England-style roll was beautifully seared with a criss-cross pattern, and the lobster meat was packaged separately to avoid making the bread soggy. Despite this, the bread was a little south of fresh. This was a good lobster roll with big chunks of lobster in a very light mayonnaise. It had decent flavor and no sense of the traditional celery salt seasoning. On the plus side, the bread was toasted with a noticeable amount of butter that made each bite taste like fresh lobster dipped in drawn butter.

D'Angelo's ($10.99): 4oz. of lobster meat. This roll also had a New England-style roll that was south of fresh. The lobster meat was lightly cooked and had just the right amount of mayonnaise. It also had a decent flavor with a hint of celery salt.

Roche Bros. ($5.99): 3oz. of lobster meat. This was a bigger potato roll that was perfectly fresh. The roll was lined with iceberg lettuce, which filled the space but gave a nice cool tasting crunch to the sandwich. The meat was lightly cooked and coated with a bit too much mayonnaise. This gave the mouth impression of mixed tunafish more than chunky lobster meat. While it also had a hint of celery salt, the flavor was the mildest of the set.

Each one had strong merits and each one was good, but none of them stood out as being the best. That said, after this tasting we had a better sense of what makes a great lobster roll: We like a fresh New England-style roll, toasted with plenty of butter. The lobster meat should be chunky but cooked lightly, coated in a medium amount of mayonnaise and seasoned liberally with celery salt.

UPDATE: Two more lobster rolls reviewed here.

Summer Dinners: Thai Beef Spinach Salad

Hi all! Noele here, Ken's daughter, in for a guest post. I'm closing out my first year as a public school teacher in New York City and getting ready for the ultimate teacher job perk: summer off! Cooking is one of my favorite things to do with my downtime, and I thought I'd pop in this summer and share some of the meals I make and enjoy on my patio. I hope you enjoy what is hopefully the first of a summer dinners series!

Thai Beef Spinach Salad 

I was inspired to make this Thai Beef Spinach Salad by this awesome restaurant in Redhook that I went to recently with my boyfriend. We had a dish called Muu Paa Kham Waan -- thin strips of boar that were limey, garlicky, and so spicy that they came with a palate cleanser/cooler (mustard greens served over crushed ice) in case you couldn't take the heat! I loved the concept of the dish and wanted to come up with a weeknight dinner version of it that would be easy for a home cook to tackle. 

My version of this dish swaps in eye of round steaks for boar, is served over a bed of spinach, and features quick-pickled cucumbers and red grapes. It took about an hour of "on" time to make and could feed two hungry people or three or four as an appetizer or light dinner. 

Here's what you'll need: 

1 thumbs length of ginger, minced and separated (about 2 tbsp) 

1 bunch cilantro, washed, roughly chopped, and separated (about 1/2 cup chopped) 

10 cloves of garlic, more or less, minced and separated

Juice from 3 limes, separated

1/4 cup soy sauce, separated 

2 tbsp sesame oil, plus a little extra for cooking 

1 tsp honey 

red pepper flakes, 1/2 tsp-2 tsp 

1 tbsp sesame seeds

2 pickling cucumbers

1/2 lb eye of round steaks, boar, or other red meat of your choice 

1 bunch fresh spinach, washed and chopped

1/2 cup red grapes, halved 

To start, I prepared a marinades for the steaks and the cucumbers. 

1. This should go without saying, but you can really use as much ginger, garlic, or cilantro as you like. I like all of these ingredients quite a lot and wanted them to really coat the meat, so I went ham and used as much as I could before it got ridiculous. If you're one of those "cilantro tastes like soap" people, I can see this recipe being still delicious if you swapped in the cilantro for some thai basil. Chop everything up so that it's pretty fine, especially the ginger -- you're not going to get the same effect with big hunks of ginger in your marinade. 

Now that you have your garlic, ginger, and cilantro chopped up, get two bowls handy so that you can make the two separate marinades at the same time -- they share a lot of ingredients. Put all the cilantro, 2/3rds of the garlic, and 2/3rds of the ginger in one bowl. This is the start for your meat marinade. Shake some red pepper into this bowl to taste. (I held back a little bit and only used about a teaspoon because my sister Anna who doesn't love spicy food was coming over.) Put the remaining 3rd of the garlic and ginger in the second bowl (no big if some cilantro clings on). This is the start of your pickling juice for the cucumbers.

This is probably a good time to open up a beer and pour it into a frosted glass. I chose Cisco Brewer's Summer of Lager and poured it into one of my belgian beer glasses. Yum. This meal pairs great with a light ale or lager. If you can get it, drink Singha (thai beer)! Anna was drinking Sixpoint's Sweet Action, which is always a good summer choice. 

Squeeze the juice from two limes and add it to the meat marinade (bowl with cilantro & red pepper flakes). Squeeze the juice from the remaining lime and add it to the cucumber marinade. Put 2 tablespoons of soy sauce into each bowl. Add the honey to the cucumber bowl and the sesame oil to the meat bowl. Add the sesame seeds to the cucumber bowl. 

Stir them both up. Add the meat to the marinade, make sure it's fully coated on all sides, cover it, and put it in the fridge to chill for a while. I left mine for about an hour and it was delicious, I'm sure more or less time would be fine too. 

Cut up the cucumbers as shown below: into little half moons. Or really, cut up the cucumbers however you want to cut the cucumbers. Toss those cucumbers into the pickling juice, cover them, and put them in the fridge with the meat. 

Go chill in your backyard, drink some beer, read a book, or whatever while your cukes and meat soak up the marinade. 

When you deem it time, take the meat out of the fridge and drain it through a fine sieve so that it is free of excess liquid but still has all the goodies (ginger, garlic, cilantro, red pepper) clinging to it. Be advised that the meat will no longer be pink because of the lime juice. Heat some oil (I used sesame, vegetable would be fine) in a small frying pan until it's sizzling. Lay the steaks in the oil and give them about a minute on each side. My steaks were relatively thin, so this was the perfect time to keep them a little pink on the inside. Use your discretion if you have large steaks or like your meat more or less well done. I served my meat cool/room temperature, but you could certainly serve it hot or even completely chilled. In any case, when you're ready to serve, slice up the steaks into thin strips. 

To serve, put a bed of spinach on the bottom of a plate. Sprinkle the red grapes on top of the spinach, followed by the pickled cucumbers. You can use the remaining pickling juice as a light dressing. Finally, lay your steak over the salads. I also made scallion pancakes using this recipe, which is surprisingly easy and really rounded out the meal. 

Enjoy with loved ones! 

Try the World Box: Portugal

Our second Try the World box contained treats from Portugal. Let's start with the before and after:

Everything in the box was delicious, but the whole box was a bit less coherent than the Thai box. There wasn't quite as clear a meal plan for a single Portuguese experience. The second picture above shows everything in the box, but features the mackerel and cod dishes we had for dinner. We started with mackerel on toast and finished with a Portuguese bacalhau. Bacalhau means cod, usually salt cod, but also appears to refer to any dish made with cod.

Our bacalhau was a breadcrumb crusted cod broiled with tomatoes and collards. We used fresh cod instead of salt cod. The recipe also called for chorizo but we substituted some ham we had on hand. The only thing from the box in the dish was a drizzle of olive oil and a small amount of the codfish seasoning.

The dish was a good cod dish, but the flavors were familiarly New England. Gail and I talked about the similarity of geography and latitude between Portugal and Boston, which made the flavor similarities seem natural to us. We used these three ingredients from the box for the dinner dishes:

Hands on Earth Codfish Seasoning - This seasoned the cod dish wonderfully, and I think we will use it again. I don't know what was in it, and that's too bad, because we won't know how to make more from our own spices when we want to.

Olivais do Sul Extra-Virgin Olive Oil - a nice medium bodied olive oil. This oil is good for dipping, but not too spicy for less adventurous tastes.

Briosa Gourmet Canned Jack Mackerel - Putting these plump mackerel filets on lightly oiled toast was a simple and delicious appetizer. I typically get smoked mackerel, but I loved them just as well unsmoked. I would happily get these again.

The box also had a number of items that were mostly for use singly:

It Apple and Cinnamon Black Tea - We made this into a refreshing iced tea. We both wish we had more.

Casa Lucena Lemon Cookies - This is a traditional Portuguese cookie, that I can best describe as Nilla Wafers with lemon flavor. I love Nilla Wafers. Nabisco should make them with lemon flavor like this.

Frutaformas Crunchy Apple Rings - These were very dehydrated apple slices. They were good, but nothing more than dried apple slices.

RARE by Quinta de Jugais Rocha Pear & Port Jam - This was one of the highlights of the box. We had this jam spread on a simple slices of bread. The pear flavor was not overly sweet. While I barely tasted port wine, the overall effect was a delicate jam that I could eat and eat without being overwhelmed by sweetness.



Paladin Piri-Piri Hot Sauce - This was another highlight. This pepper sauce had both a nice flavor and decent kick of heat. Unusually, though, the heat dissipates quickly so it doesn't feel scary to use it liberally. This is a great alternative to Sriracha or Tabasco.

Bottom line on this box: we enjoyed everything in it, but would have like a little more coherent curation and recipe suggestions like in the Thai box.

Green Flash Soul Style IPA

I have heard such great things about Green Flash, but never had it until tonight. My first bottle was a revelation of greatness, their Soul Style IPA. The label tells the story well:

"Get stoked on a single. Our brewers rip-creating huge and complex double and triple IPAs at the pinnacle of craft beer enlightenment. Soul Style IPA® is their effortless and pure manifestation of the Single IPA. Simcoe, Citra, and Cascade hops are layered, allowing bright tropical waves of flavorful citrus and floral notes to break gently on the palate. Get stoked on a laid back single and ride a wave to sooth your soul."

I tend to think I need a good double or even a triple IPA to get the same intensity of hops that this beer displays. It certainly is missing that resinous character of the stronger styles, but it is bright and fresh, with what I would characterize as a west coast style of bitterness: stronger and more lingering on the back of the tongue than usually is made here in the east. The biggest weakness is a sweetness that lingers too long in the back of my throat after the bitterness fades. That can easily be solved with another sip ... until it's gone.

Try the World Box: Thailand

We really enjoyed our Try the World box from Thailand. This was the first, official installment of the present our daughters gave us for our birthdays. They also made us a preview box representing Brooklyn that I blogged about previously.

The first thing we noticed about the Thailand box was how nicely it was packaged. Instead of all the contents being crammed in a standard USPS flat-rate box, it came in a neat box with a lid, which itself was wrapped in a cardboard outer box for shipping. We also noticed that the box was packed full. There was no cheating here. I hate companies that cheat on packaging.

Now for the contents:

• Wangderm Thai Iced Tea Kit
• Minemadame Taro Chips
• Eros Dried Coconut
• Virgin Coco Coconut Crispy Rolls
• Nittaya Green Curry Paste
• Chiwadi Coconut Flower Syrup
• Lumium Tom Yum Soup Set
• Jasberry Rice

The box also included a long, fan-fold "Culture Guide," which included a description of the contents, a map of where everything came from, a bio of the chef-curator, a recommended menu, recipes and a 20% off promo code at the Try The World e-shop. The guide was beautifully printed on hard stock. Again, no scrimping here; they put real effort into building the whole experience.

Our meal started with the three snacks: taro chips, coconut crispy rolls and dried coconut. We both liked the taro chips. I think we have had them in chip mixes before. They are sort of like potato chips with a sweeter, slightly squash-like flavor and texture. The coconut crispy rolls are a fun shaped little cookie. They weren't too sweet, so it didn't feel like dessert before dinner. I fell in love with the dried coconut. They obviously had added sugar, which was just enough to bring out great coconut flavor. I'll get these again.

To go with the snacks, we made a pot of Thai iced tea. The kit came with enough mix to make about a quart of tea, and a cloth net that acted like a tea bag. I think a drawstring bag would be easier to use. The tea is sweetened with the coconut flower syrup and served over ice. We couldn't get the added condensed milk to give a layered look like in a restaurant. The finished tea had a beautiful color and tasted just the way I like it.

Our next course was the tom yum soup. The kit included a set of four individually sealed ingredients with instructions that probably worked better in Thai. We struggled for a while to figure out what was in each packet and finally settled on red peppers, lime leaves, lemon grass (not scallions), and galanga  (not mushrooms). The recipe had us add our own mushrooms, onions and chicken.

The tom yum soup I've had before is a clear broth. You can see from the picture that our soup was not a clear broth. If you make your own, treat the four ingredients more like a tea and take them out before serving. We learned that none of the ingredients are edible. Oh, and take them out early in the process. The flavor get's strong fast.

It should be easy enough to get the ingredients again. Pepper and lemon grass are easy to find. I'm confident that ginger can be substituted for the galanga if needed. And, we found a small package of fresh lime leaves at H Mart for another dish and were able to dry the leftovers for future use

The main course was chicken curry with the jasberry rice. We've made dishes using Thai curry pastes before. It's remarkably easy to get an authentic result. I'd recommend you give it a try. Curry paste is easy to get in the international section of grocery stores in our area. You also need canned coconut milk, again easy to get. The final key is fish sauce. You may not be familiar with it, but it also might be in the international grocery aisle.

A few words about fish sauce. First, don't skip it: it is necessary for an authentic Thai flavor. Second, don't smell it: if you do that, you might not want to use it. This stuff smells like fermented fish, which is probably good, because it is fermented fish. You are only going to use about a tablespoon. Trust me, it will be fine.

Our curry also included the fresh lime leaves I mentioned earlier, some potatoes and carrots, some basil and onion, and a little tamarind paste. The tamarind paste was new for us. We had trouble finding it in H Mart, but it was right there in front of us. We were looking for a jar, but it comes in a plastic wrapped brick. Tamarind is the base of Worcester sauce, and the paste is like a paste of figs or raisins. You can make a good curry using almost any firm meats or vegetables you like. Proportions are really up to your taste. You can skip the tamarind, but not the fish sauce.

Our recipe called for the curry to be served with the jasberry rice. Although any rice will work, it's most common to use jasmine rice. Jasberry rice is a new kind of organic rice bred with high levels of anti-oxidants. And, while it is supposed to be healthier for you, I think the real appeal is the dark purple color. It tastes like a good wild rice, but doesn't have the fibrous husks.

The dessert course was a rice pudding also made with the jasberry rice. Rice pudding was new for me. It came out like a firmer tapioca pudding, and I'm sure I could have cooked it a little longer, soaking up more of the liquid. I liked it and it didn't go to waste, but pudding has never been my go-to dessert.

Finally, I repurposed the coconut flower syrup into a Thai-inspired cocktail I called a Thai Mai Tai. Really just a Mai Tai with the coconut flower syrup. The syrup is pretty much just a honey substitute. It made a good Mai Tai, but to really get a Thai flavor, I think a little Coco Reàl and some lime would be called for. I'll try that.