I always think of Cape Cod because of the land of perpetual summertime — blue skies, seashores, seafood, amusing within the warm sun. Does the Cape even exist the rest of the year, or do they evacuate and shut down the bridges after Labor Day? No one could ever definitely realize the solution to that question. Regardless, whilst it magically reappeared on the map, my own family and I decided to pay the Cape a visit for a day trip.
We stopped in at The Quarterdeck in Falmouth for a fast chunk at lunch. It’s your conventional old New England seafood eating place, proper on Main Street between several old-fashioned stores. The inside is designed to resemble the interior of a vintage cruising ship, a piece dimly lit with low ceilings, filled with nautical memorabilia, flags, and corny symptoms (“Unattended kids could be given coffee and a free kitten,” har har), and embellished with tough, dark timbers — a number of that wooden reclaimed from a boatyard and dating to the 1600s, as a paper placemat helpfully referred to. There’s a hectic timber bar beneath a few TVs decorated with police and fire patches and a bulletin board pinned with pics of locals. It’s an at ease location with lots of nearby attractions.
My wife, daughter, and I evidently had to wait a couple of minutes for a table, it being a busy weekend day, the eating room and bar packed and abuzz with communique. Eventually, a hostess sat us in a corner close to a beautiful stained-glass window depicting a fleet of cruise ships, and we looked at the menu. There’s a respectable quantity of variety inside the dishes supplied. However, usually, you’re searching at seafood galore — and basic, a summary form of seafood, like raw shellfish, battered-and-fried stuff, lobster, grilled swordfish. But there’s nonetheless terrestrial protein available for anyone tagging along who prefers that.
We caught to lemonade for the kid and lemon-flavored San Pellegrino for the grownups; however, there’s a good selection of alcoholic liquids. Whites, reds, and sparkling wines are available with the aid of the glass, half-carafe, or the bottle, a few priced expensively enough to make you look smart, others priced sufficient to prove you actually are clever. A few beers are on the faucet and in bottles, nothing unique; however, the bar can whip up a few exciting cocktails for $10 to $12, just like the burnt sugar old fashioned, the midnight Manhattan, or the new and dirty martini with Thai chili-infused olive brine.
The starters have been all tempting, like the sparkling uncooked oysters ($three every), filled quahog with lemon butter and warm sauce ($7), or a favorite of mine, steamed mussels with white wine and garlic sauce ($15). We ended up picking the fried calamari with roasted purple pepper aioli ($15) in the hopes we ought to persuade our daughter to attempt one if we didn’t inform her it turned into a squid.
Our server took our appetizer order, said she’d come back to take our entrees, then skedaddled earlier than I should tell her we already knew what we wanted. I constantly select ordering the whole thing at the outset. I’ve eaten at sufficient restaurants to know that ordering guides separately may additionally seem faster — “I’ll position that order in even as you make a decision” certain sounds faster, right? — however, it is continually slower.
The lunch entrees at Quarterdeck are fundamental favorites — meat (or fish) and potatoes kind dishes without quite a few fusses, like scrod ($15), fowl penne ($13), steak suggestions ($16), that type of element. The dinner menu functions greater of the same but slightly more steeply-priced, with a few greater alternatives just like the 8-ounce filet mignon with bordelaise sauce ($35) or the seafood bouillabaisse with lobster, shrimp, scallops, and haddock ($34). Both food addict ionally provides t, the “Lazy Man’s lobster,” (marketplace fee), which is a whole lobster baked en casserole with a crumb topping. I don’t assume that’s lazy — smart guy’s lobster, in case you ask me. Getting the meat out of a lobster is messy and an excessive amount of paintings. Let the chef try this.