Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [23]
Massachusetts
Agawam Diner
US Routes 1 and 133
978–948–7780
Rowley, MA
BLD | $
A worthy alternative to the great fried clam shacks of Massachusetts’s North Shore, Agawam is a shipshape, pint-size Fodero Company diner (circa 1954) that is all silver sunbursts, pink laminate paneling, and red-upholstered booths. The menu is pure and traditional diner fare, including beef stew, hot hamburger plates, crunchy-skinned grilled hot dogs, and luscious grilled cheese sandwiches for less than the cost of a junk-food hamburger, and breakfast that arrives moments after you order it.
We have enjoyed hearty beef and bean chili in a sweet-hot tomato sauce and we have savored a daily special of lamb shank, which was so tender that it slipped from its bone with ease. A double-layer banana nut cake gobbed with whipped cream was a memorable dessert.
Baxter’s Boathouse
177 Pleasant St.
508–775–7040
Hyannis, MA
LD April to Columbus Day | $$
After studying the posted menu at Baxter’s, place an order at the counter then loiter nearby as the kitchen puts it together in about two minutes. You then carry your own tray to a varnished table indoors or a picnic table overlooking Hyannis Harbor. Or you can enjoy table service on the Governor Brann, a ferry boat converted into a floating dining room with seating for a few hundred customers. Or, if you choose, you can arrive in Lewis Harbor by boat, tie up at Baxter’s dock, and be waited on without going ashore!
However you experience Baxter’s, the thing to eat is summertime Yankee shore fare: crisp fried clams served with decent fries or indecently tasty clam fritters, which are deep-fried doughballs dotted with morsels of clam and served with honey for dipping. The lobster rolls are good, as is the Yankee-style (creamy) chowder. Or you can eat fine scallops, shrimps, or oysters. Steaks are available for fish-frowners.
Baxter’s is a restaurant and a club, and it is popular pastime among the local drinking set to occupy the club long into the night, knocking back shots and beers. For us, the beverage of choice with our seafood dinners is the drink known here as “tonic,” which is simply an eastern Bay State word for what the rest of us know as soda pop.
Butler’s Colonial Donut House
461 Sanford Rd.
508–672–4600
Westport, MA
BL | $
We were worried a few years ago when we learned that donut-maker Alex Kogler had sold his little bakery gem in Westport. What would happen to his superior donuts?
As soon as we saw the long johns on the shelf, we breathed great sighs of relief. Under the new management, they are as beautiful as ever: long, lightweight rectangles that are cut in half and filled with a thin ribbon of black raspberry jelly and freshly whipped cream. Mr. Kogler used to call these the ultimate donuts, and in our book, they still are.
You’ll find whipped cream filling in hole-less donuts, too. Each one is a big featherweight cream puff sliced in half and filled. Made from raised yeast dough, it is so fragile that you want to hold it very gently, lest you dent the surface with a heavy thumb. The cool filling is pure and white, and the counterpoise of silky whipped cream with ethereal cake, crowned by a spill of powdered sugar on the top, is out of this world. Butler’s shelves are also stocked with a vast array of sticky apple fritters, tarts, and glazed and frosted donuts, even PB&J donuts for childlike tastes. Nothing in this little bake shop is ordinary!
Caffe Sicilia
40 Main St.
978–283–7345
Gloucester, MA
BL | $
Paul Ciaramitaro is a man you need to meet if you come to Gloucester. A former fisherman, he is a huge guy with huge enthusiasms, and his presence fills the tiny espresso and pastry shop that is his domain down near the waterfront. He holds court behind the counter, where he makes espresso