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.
