The Lobster House

Well this is the lamest blog project ever, but at least I’m not a quitter! We’ve actually been to The Lobster House twice now, separated by over a year. This is what happens when the laziest people on the planet make a no-rules blog. We never get around to writing things up, though we certainly do the restaurant eating. I say “we” never get to writing, that would be me. The best I get Julie to contribute to this project is the eating part and MAYBE taking a few notes and suggesting things to include.

 

Julie and I love seafood and definitely lobster. Julie had been dying to go to the Lobster House in Norwood, just five miles up the road from Potsdam in the beautiful North Country, NY. She decided she loves lobster after our adventure buying live ones to do at home from Larry's Fish Truck (blog post 9/20/11), which is now out of business. Julie’s Dad is a vegetarian as far as land animals are concerned, but his issues aren’t about eating sentient creatures. He has issues of flavor and maybe stuff that I have no place to speculate about. MJ is not so big on seafood... again why this could never be the MJ/Mom Project!

 

The first time we tried The Lobster House, we had been planning to go for my birthday. As chance would have it though, I got called up for an out-of-state job and would be away on that date, so we went immediately. My lost camera still not replaced, and nobody with a working camera on their phone, we got no pictures. I was pretty upset because the tank of live lobsters next to the bar is a neat, if kinda sad, photo op. I also forgot my blog notebook, so I saved the itemized bill and scribbled some notes on that about what we had ordered.

 

For our latest visit, I had been out of state for almost five months, spanning the summer. The kids had just gone back to school. Julie was craving seafood from watching mermaid television shows, "H2O: Just Add Water" and "Mako Mermaids". I would think watching shows about human-like fish (or fish-like humans) should turn one into a pure vegan, but apparently Julie has no issues with sentient creatures as food either! Still no camera and all phones were busted for taking pictures except one. The photo quality is poor and the pic of the sad lobster tank isn’t good, but I posted what we got.

 

MJ’s first time meal here was the two-choice combination. She got the fried breaded shrimp (the only seafood she has ever liked) and the chicken alfredo with caesar salad and side of veggies. This time she went with just the chicken alfredo. Better to have the remainder of chicken alfredo come home in a box than fried shrimp, as happened the first time. House salad, no dressing, and criss-cross fries rounded out her meal.

 

Dad went with the catch of the day, cod, fresh from Boston Market. Both of us have always enjoyed cod since reading a book about the history of the fishery and its disastrous crash in the north Atlantic. Apparently, they catch enough these days to supply a specialty restaurant in the tiny village of Norwood, NY. Coleslaw, a baked potato and a very large draft beer of Blue Moon went with his endangered fish. The first time here, he got the breaded deep-fried shrimp and fish combo. The fish part of that was unidentified, but good enough with his side order of veggies and coleslaw.

 

I went with a combination lobster alfredo and the stuffed flounder the first time, which was filled with deviled crab meat, and was absolutely delicious! I might have gotten it again it was so good, but I like to do different things and Julie and I had a special plan this time. The lobster alfredo was good, but really didn’t do justice to the lobster meat, the flavor of which was drowned out by the creamy parmesan sauce and noodles. I got the cooked veggies side consisting of broccoli, carrots and zucchini. My criss-cross fries mostly ended up in a to-go box with MJ’s. A glass of chardonnay accompanied my food superbly.

 

Julie went with the name of the restaurant from the beginning and ordered a large Rock Lobster Tail our first visit. She loved it and I was almost regretful I hadn’t gotten one too as she dipped the pieces of succulent meat into the liquefied butter. Her sides were a cup of the chicken soup du jour and a garden salad with ranch dressing. She gave the tomatoes to her Dad.

 

Our appetizers on our first visit were the fried ravioli (consumed primarily by Dad and MJ) and the crab-stuffed mushroom caps topped with mozzarella, baked in garlic butter (consumed primarily by Julie and Mom). Julie and I each got a cup of the lobster bisque. We skipped the lobster bisque our latest visit because it really wasn’t that great. It was good, but I have perhaps been spoiled by the bisque at the Four Seasons on Lanai Island, Hawaii, which means I am unlikely to ever really enjoy a seafood bisque again in my life. This latest visit we repeated the successful appetizers of fried ravioli for Dad and MJ and the stuffed mushrooms for Julie and Mom.

 

The waiter had described some sort of mix-up with the lobster order from their supplier and instead of getting a certain number of lobsters, they got the same number of CRATES of lobsters. At least, that’s what it sounded like he said. Whatever the reason, the lobster was on special! Julie and I each ordered a whole lobster, the 1 ¼ lb size. We had great fun playing with cracking open our large insects-of-the-sea. There’s just something different about eating once-sentient creatures when you can still see their eyes on your dinner plate, or for that matter their whole bodies. Exoskeletal critters are still critters, but I suppose it’s no different than eating meat with the bones still in it. After all, isn’t it fun to play with a whole roasted chicken, waving a little wing at the person next to you or dancing it around upright on its drumstick legs? Julia Child seemed positively ruthless the way she flopped whole chicken bodies around and tied them up or skewered them in various ways. But then, she was equally detached with whole lobster bodies. See our blog post Larry's Fish Truck for memorable thoughts about lobsters as sentient creatures.

 

Caesar salad and criss-cross fries for Julie and rice pilaf and steamed vegetables for me were all consumed but the fries, the remainder of which made it into a to-go box. The lobsters were delicious and we had so much fun playing with them, we took their shells home in a to-go box at a waitress’s suggestion. (A few days later I washed them out and put them in the sun to dry as a souvenir of our dinner!) We had a pile of to-go boxes, one with the lobster shells (two bodies with heads and a couple of the cleaned out front claws), one with the remains of two orders of criss-cross fries, one with chicken alfredo, and two with desserts. Yes, everyone was too stuffed to have anything else to eat, but I let the girls get dessert to-go to eat later. I failed to write down what they got and the dessert options don’t appear on the menu to jog my memory. MJ claims she got something called lava cake with chocolate melty fudge on it and Julie says hers was some sort of Oreo Cookie concoction.

 

I needed to go home and crawl into bed. I can’t eat that much food, especially that much rich food, and not go into a food coma. I was lucky to make it the few minutes drive home without falling asleep at the wheel. The reader of this blog has probably been lulled into the same state of mind by my writing.

Murray's Old Irish Inn, Waddington, NY

Saint Patrick’s Day. This is a “must” day for the Julie/Mom Project. By blessed god or goddess we will celebrate this occasion! I saw adverts for a few places in the Julie/Mom Project hit list and considered some local places, but we we ended up on a different mission.

 

Well, we haven’t “officially” been to Scoopuccinos yet. I called them up, given their advertised specials in the North Country for corned beef reuben sandwiches and corned beef and cabbage dinner. It was JUST dinner. Julie and I wanted lunch and we wanted “traditional”. Side note here is that “corned beef and cabbage” is NOT “traditional Irish” fair but traditional “Irish American” fair. Look it up if you don’t care to recognize, this blog is about today’s world.

 

We briefly considered Maxfield’s (still on our hit list) and just as quickly rejected McDuff’s (written up last year). Also thought about Eben’s Hearth, where we love, but have already done for “the Project”. Looking through the “North Country This Week” adverts, we saw Murray’s Old Irish Inn.

 

It turns out that Murray’s is not listed in the North Country This Week Restaurant Guide that is suppooosed to be the guiding light of this blog. Well, I suppose we are off to new country then. We googled it, pretty much stop at main place and turn right. The St Lawrence Seaway was our guiding  sureness. We hit that and turned right! Turned right again and eventually found it.

 

The immediate survey found two small rooms adjoined in the center. The furthest room housed an inactive furnace fireplace and a mostly working pool table with over half the seating capacity. I honestly didn’t ask about the fireplace, it may well be in full force during the height of the winter season! It did not look disfunctional.

 

We were there for traditional American Irish corned beef and cabbage meal. Murrays promised it was there at lunch hour start for Sunday celebration and so it was! Julie and I headed out of town for not-quite Canada.  I joked about having our passports.

 

We found it eventally after realizing we couldn’t cross the seaway/border. Thank goddess for rural, sparse areas that make finding an establishment with a tiny, inobtrusive place an excercise in satisfaction.

 

The party was apparently over the night before... great for us, bad for traditional St Patty’s Day partiers. Not “bad” I suppose. I recall times in my younger days of St Patty’s Day celebration with too much revelry. So it was great for my day with my 11 year old kid, Julie, of the PROJECT.

 

We ordered our plates of corned beef and cabbage (supposedly profits offerered to a charity though i never caught what it was), then wondered about. There was a pool table Julie insisted on playing. I told her maybe and we did later.

 

The plates were piled high with corned beef, cabbage, baby carrots and potatoes, topped with a slice of buttered raisin bread. Julie asked about seasoning as we fished out large bits of flavoring, whole black pepper kernels and a bay leaf.

 

As we tucked into this smorgasbord, I considered our surroundings and presentation of the occasion. The large mirror backing the bar was engraved with “GUINNESS” as was other decor, including a proper dart board that was clearly not in use due to the presence of a structural pillar directly in the location of the throwing area. There was some typical green paperwaste garland and such, but my daughter and I were decked out in the most elaborate schemes for anyone there with our “I <shamrock> NY” shirts and green shamrock bead necklaces.

 

Julie got a green colored Shirley Temple, I ordered Guinness Draught. I looked for a tap and saw none. Out came my perfect draught. I noticed the empty box of nitrous oxide infused cans later. Works for me... beats the sometimes dirty lines in the places that serve the Guinness from a tap.

 

I asked about the process by which Julie ate her meal. I ate mine typically for me, a few bites of each item at the same time. I like to bolster the blandness of the potato (red skinned here) with a bit of corned beef and/or cabbage. Julie claims to eat each item in total, separately, in order of least favorite to most. I asked her how she felt when she then ate too much of her least favorite items and was too full to eat her favorite, “I hate it when that happens”. Curiously she claims also to save her least favorite item for last so as to use the excuse of being full to not eat it. The raisin bread went uneaten despite her claim to like it (two bites removed). The corned beef was second last to go and consumed in entirety! Both of Julie’s strategies seemed to be in play.

 

We shot one game of pool, poor Julie missing our rare lessons at my favorite bar in Hawaii. More lessons in how the table eats the que ball than anything else. The proprietor demonstrated a light-up silly hat from the party the night before and gave it to us, by which it failed soon after! Ha! I can fix it by soldering some electronic wires but it will have to wait for the next Vernal Equinox.