Summer has come and almost gone (sadly) without as much as a single blog post. But do not worry – I still have had to eat and have been able to cook some amid all of my summer adventures. Now that the summer is winding down, it is time to share some of my eating adventures with you.
At the beginning of August, my husband and I accompanied two Sea Scouts to an international sailboat race held at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. This being my first time anywhere on the East Coast, I was excited to try some true New England fare. Since most of our time in Connecticut was spent enjoying the scenery of Vanguard 420’s (and the occasional nuclear submarine) on the Thames river, we ate many fast food meals. As fancy as Taco Bell and McDonald’s are, I can have those any day when I am at home in the Midwest. Our week started out slow with trying local cuisine, but soon we were enjoying all this small state had to offer.
After a long day of traveling and checking our Scouts into Connecticut College where they would be staying for the week, we went to our hotel room to enjoy way more chicken wings than two people should ever eat. As yummy as these wings were from the local joint, Wings ‘N’ Pies, we still knew that wings were something we could readily eat back home. So, the next night we went decided to go in search of some truly authentic New England cuisine. Because Connecticut lacks in size, roads and, sometimes, civilization, we got on one of the main highways and began driving. Our search took us nearly a third of the way into the state from the coast. At the end of those twenty miles, we were starving and decided to settle on a local pizza joint. Our thin crust chicken enchilada pizza was delicious and definitely very different than the stuffed crust pizza we have in Chicago, but we had still not had those authentic New England flavors we were in search of. Our minds immediately went to seafood – we knew that was the missing ingredient from this trip.
That night, my husband looked up what seafood dish we needed to try in Connecticut and determined it was a lobster roll. With a little more searching, we decided that the best place to get one in New London was at Captain Scott’s Lobster Deck. On our way to lunch the next day at Captain Scott’s, we were not sure what to expect. As we drove through run down buildings and docks to get there, we became concerned with what would await us. What did await us, however, was a quaint food stand on the water with picnic tables to enjoy our lunch in the beautiful weather. And there were customers! We always look for the places with lots of customers because that means there are lots of people who enjoy that restaurant. Although we were there to try the lobster rolls, I decided to order fish and chips so we would have more Connecticut seafood to taste. Wanting the lobster roll, my husband asked our cashier if she recommended a hot or cold roll. For those unfamiliar with lobster rolls (as I was until recently), hot lobster rolls are just lobster meat with melted butter on a submarine-type roll and a cold roll is filled with a lobster salad similar to a chicken or tuna salad. The cashier recommended the hot roll, so that is what he ordered. Now it was just time to wait for our mid-day meal.
This is the part where I could try to tell how much we enjoyed our true Connecticut seafood, but I truly believe that a picture is worth a thousand words. And yes, the fish and lobster were just as delicious as they look. The buttery lobster melted in our mouths and the fish just fell apart as we devoured it. After that lunch, I was very satisfied that I had gotten my authentic regional meal.
Adding a bit of lemon to the hot lobster roll.
Fish and chips just waiting to be enjoyed.
So we continued to eat our fancy fast food meals as the week went on and we stayed busy watching our scouts race. However, as we were heading to the airport early on Saturday morning, we knew that there was one authentic Connecticut meal that we had not yet tasted: Dunkin’ Donuts. I know that this donut chain originated on the East coast, but I never would have thought it was such a local spot before going to Connecticut. Upon arriving in Connecticut, we had quickly noticed that there were Dunkin’ Donuts shops literally everywhere. There seemed to be a shop every two blocks, and that was not counting the gas stations that sold these local delicacies. Therefore, it was only fitting that we stop at one of these restaurants on our way home.
To fulfill this mission, we decided we would stop a Dunkin’ Donuts when we stopped to fill the car with gas. We knew it would not be hard to find these things together. And it was not. About half way to the airport, we stopped at a gas station next door to the Dunkin’ Donuts. The plan was that the Scouts and myself would get donuts while my husband got gas. My husband succeeded at his task; we miserably failed at ours. Actually, we were intimidated by the amount of people at the shop. There were at least ten cars in the drive-thru line and every register inside had a line of people that almost reached the door. That is when we knew why there needed to be so many Dunkin’ Donuts shops. Not wanting to wait in those kinds of lines, we continued on to the airport donut-less. But we just had to drive another few miles and we were able to attempt our mission again. This time: mission accomplished. We enjoyed our donuts and all came to a consensus that we do not like strong East Coast coffee. With Dunkin’ Donuts checked off our list, we were able to say that we had a successful trip to Connecticut and were able to truly enjoy some of the local cuisine.
