Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [14]
LD (summer only) | $$
Beal’s is on a working lobster pier. Picnic tables overlook the harbor; from them, you can see the mountains of Acadia National Park in the distance and listen to the water rippling against the hulls of berthed fishing boats. At sunset, it is magic.
Inside, select a lobster from the tank; while waiting for it to boil, eat your way through a bucket of steamer clams or dip into a cup of chowder. Lobsters come pre-cracked for easy meat extraction, but it’s still some work. If a handsome whole one is too challenging a proposition, you can also get a lobster roll—tightly packed, with plenty of fresh, cool meat atop a cushion of shredded lettuce. Burgers and a few other non-lobster meals also are available. Desserts vary; we have enjoyed blueberry cake and ice cream.
Becky’s
390 Commercial St.
207–773–7070
Portland, ME
BLD | $
To say Becky’s is a friendly place only hints at its sociability. If you are a newcomer and walk in the door any time after 5:00 A.M., you might think you have suddenly crashed some sort of predawn party of ravenous coffee hounds. Becky loves her varied clientele. “No matter who you are ‘out there,’ when you walk into Becky’s Diner, you are one of us,” she says. “Side by side at my counter sit fishermen and captains of industry, college professors and paranoid schizophrenics. They talk to each other and they talk to those who work here. We are all family.”
The breakfast menu includes homemade muffins, French toast made from locally baked Italian bread, and “loaded” hash brown potatoes, which are mixed with peppers and onions and blanketed with melted cheese. There is a full array of the usual breakfast sandwiches, and one sandwich that isn’t usual at all: peanut butter and bacon. “I guess it’s a breakfast sandwich,” Becky chuckled. We love the “Titanic omelet,” loaded with all three breakfast meats, cheese, onions, and peppers, and accompanied, preferably, by Portland’s favorite morning breadstuff, toasted Italian bread. Home fries come plain, with onions, with green peppers, with cheese, or with all of the above.
Lunch and supper are swell. Baked beans and franks is as classic a platter as you’ll find anywhere in New England, as is the frequent special of pot roast, which is basically an old-fashioned boiled dinner. We’ve savored hot turkey plates, seafood chowder (every Friday), fish and chips, and Italian sausage sandwiches, as well as handsome slices of Becky’s jumbo layer cake.
Bob’s Clam Hut
315 US Route 1
207–439–4233
Kittery, ME
LD | $$
What Roadfood adventurer could say no to Bob’s simple motto: “Eat Clams”? Fried clams, clam cakes, clam chowder, and clamburgers are all wonderful, but in fact they are just the headliners on a long menu of excellent Downeast seafood.
Seafood rolls are showpieces, and not just those piled with fried whole-belly clams or clam strips. You can have them loaded with scallops, shrimp, and oysters (all fried) or with crab, shrimp salad, or lobster. The lobster roll, a high-ticket item at about $12, is a beaut, served in a nice warm bun that is buttered and grilled until toasty golden brown on both sides; the lobster meat inside is faintly chilled, but not so much that any of the taste has been iced. In fact, this lobster blossoms with bracing ocean flavor when you sink your teeth into the good-size pieces. There is plenty of meat, bound with enough mayo to help it hold together. The taste that lingers, though, is not the mayonnaise. It is lobster and its butter-sopped bun. On the side of most seafood dishes comes Bob’s excellent tartar sauce, a perfect balance of richness and zest.
The method of ordering and getting food at Bob’s is the immemorial Yankee clam hut ritual. There is no table service. Either outdoors or at the indoor counter, you read the posted menu, then place your order and pay in advance. If it is summer and you are outside in the bright sun, you will not see anything in the darkened interior, including the person taking your order, and it is all done so fast your eyes don’t adjust. No