310 Commercial Street @ Standish Provincetown, Massachusetts 508.487.0977 website
I just mentioned that A and I rarely have dessert when we go out. Well, after grabbing lunch/dinner at The Mayflower, we decided to have ice cream. Lewis Brothers is well known for its ice cream in P-town. Before the wedding, we had purchased a few pints for the pre-wedding BBQ. I found out that my new brother-in-law D's favourite flavour is mudslide chip.
I always enjoy soft serve ice cream so decide to have a peach flavoured soft serve yogurt. I really liked the mild peach flavour. Unfortunately, I reached my full capacity early and couldn't finish my frozen yogurt. My boyfriend A was happy to oblige.
Soft serve peach yogurt.
A decided to get the mudslide chip, which consisted of vodka, kahlua, bailey's and chocolate chips. Geez... what's not to like? A seemed to like it!
A's mudslide.
Finally, we took the opportunity to walk around P-town. It's definitely an interesting and eclectic town. There are interesting stores around that you would find nowhere else. Too bad I didn't have more time to check it out!
300 Commercial Street Provincetown, Massachusetts 508.487.0121 website
When planning my trip to Cape Cod (after the wedding that is), I was most excited to go whale watching and luckily my boyfriend A felt the same. Unfortunately, the weather did not seem cooperative; thick layers of fog limited vision to a few hundred feet or so. However, I was able to convince A to go anyway (he came with little hope of seeing anything). Luckily, the fog did clear and we ended up in a feeding area so we were able to see twelve different whales or so! What a sight they are, just beautiful! I was excited for the whole day! Dolphin fleet is the only fleet in Provincetown that offers whale watching.
Mother and her calf, and other whales.
After the long boat ride (our trip was extended by 30 minutes because the whales were SO amazing!), A and I were famished. We walked around Provincetown (P-town) looking for food. P-town is a very touristy area and so we just agreed on pizza. As we walked toward a pizza joint, A stopped and pointed out that he thought what I really wanted was seafood. Yes, so sweet! As you can imagine, there are many seafood restaurant in P-town but we decided to go to The Mayflower.
A ordered the veggie burger deluxe ($8.95) which came with fries. He paid a small fee to add cheese to his fries but was sorely disappointed that it was a fake cheesy sauce, rather than real cheese.
Veggie burger deluxe.
I came into the restaurant planning to order a scallop dish but got distracted by the Portuguese section of the menu offering bolhas de bacalhau, Portuguese codfish cakes (many Portuguese fishermen settled in P-town after the American revolution). I like trying new things! The potato and salted codfish cakes were tasty although slightly overcooked, as you can see below. It was good but maybe I should have had scallops one last time...
My codfish cakes.
I think The Mayflower is like all restaurants in P-town, a bit more commercial. The food is okay but you're not really there for the food.
222 Main Street East Orleans, Massachusetts 508.255.8547 website
On the day after the wedding festivities, my boyfriend A and I took it pretty easy. We had breakfast hosted by my brother-in-law D's family. As D and my sister L headed out to Martha's Vineyard for a few days of rest, A and I went to check out the beach. After our long walk, we came home to leftovers of cheese and cake from the wedding.
A on the jetty in Provincetown.
While A napped after our long walk, I researched restaurants in Cape Cod. I narrowed them down to a couple. I let A make the final decision since he faces less choices because he's vegetarian. We decided to go to the Nauset Beach Club. The Nauset Beach Club specializes in Northern Italian cuisine and is set in an old converted beach house. By the parking lot, I spotted a garden that I assume supplies the kitchen. I think that's a good sign for a restaurant!
The garden and Beach Club!
We were first served two pieces of bread with sage flavoured oil. I remember really enjoying the hot bread (because it was a foggy and cold evening), especially dipped in the sage oil. And I decided to share a starter and picked the risotto del giorno: grilled radicchio with shaved asparagus. It was very good and I really liked the unusual use of radicchio in the risotto.
Top: bread and sage oil. Bottom: risotto with radicchio.
For my main dish, I ordered the linguine con vongole ($13 for the antipasto portion) since I figured clams in Cape Cod would be quite fresh. This dish was very simple and depended on the freshness of the clams. The little neck clams were great but the sauce lacked a bit of excitement.
Linguine con vongole.
A on the other hand loved his gnocchi con asparagi ($19) and stated the homemade gnocchi was the best he had ever had. I tasted a gnocchi and had to agree it was pretty tasty. My friend C whose family hails from Northern Italy likes her gnocchi more chewy but I like them soft and melt-in-your mouth and these were in that category! (On a side note, I remember having amazing gnocchi at Tom Colicchio's Craft in NYC years ago.)
Gnocchi con Asparagi.
With our main dishes, I decided to order a contorni. The verdure ($6) I selected consisted of escarole with garlic and carona beans and tomato confit. It was a great choice! With my Asian background, I love eating cooked greens. The dish might not look spectacular but I loved the creamy beans and the tomato confit was perfectly flavourful. Anyone would eat greens if they were served this dish. I have been obsessively searching the internet for a recipe to replicate!
Escarole with garlic and carona beans and tomato confit.
One thing I noticed going out for dinner with A is that he encourages to stop eating when I'm full, while I'm happy to plow through sometimes. The result is that when we go for nice meals, we usually skip dessert since we are pretty full at the end of our meal. But come to think of it, I think I'd rather have a nice appetizer than dessert.
If you're looking for a nice Italian restaurant in Cape Cod, or a good restaurant in general, I really think we picked a winner!
As I mentioned in previous posts, the reason I was in Cape Cod was for my sister L's nuptials to D. L and D rented a beautiful beach house in Provincetown, where we had all been staying. Months of preparation culminated to this special day. We hoped for good weather; instead it stopped raining just enough for the backyard ceremony.
As for the food, their caterer PTown Parties Catering provided a perfect New England feast. After the ceremony, we enjoyed cocktails while L and D went to get pictures taken at the beach. Appetizers included freshly fried clams, potato latkes, mini BLT's and endive spears. I was too busy to take pictures but everything was quite tasty. Being cheese lovers, L and D also had prepared an extensive selection of cheeses.
L thought of every detail for the wedding!
After L & D's return, we sat down for our meal (that is, after I gave my toast, which somewhat helped me regain my appetite!). We were first served clam chowder. You can't have a New England meal without, can you? It honestly was the best clam chowder I had. It struck a perfect balance of clam brininess and creaminess; I realized then that most chowders are too rich and heavy. My boyfriend A arrived right before the ceremony and enjoyed his corn chowder that he was highly praising too. (By the way, A generously offered to take food pictures of me.)
Corn and clam chowders.
The main meal (the majority ordered the lobster) was served with jalapeno corn bread with honey butter. The corn bread was good but had a surprising kick from the jalapeno that was a bit overwhelming.
Corn bread served with honey butter.
Finally, our lobster arrived. I have to admit I slightly regretted my lobster decision. I just didn't want to work for my food at that moment (embarrassingly, I was spoiled and got help from my mom...). However, the lobster meat couldn't be more fresh. A's vegetarian option consisted of a lasagna that seemed quite good. Each main dish was accompanied by roasted potatoes, grilled vegetables and half an ear of corn.
Top: Lobster and lasagna. Bottom: the newlyweds getting ready to chow down!
L and D's wedding was a small affair, 30+ guests. The night was filled with different activities, from the Mexican shoe game to the anniversary dance. The night did end with traditional cakes. The chocolate mousse and carrot cakes came from Whole Foods. The prices were ridiculously reasonable compared to wedding cakes. I couldn't eat more that night but I did really enjoy the carrot cake for breakfast on the next two mornings!
Cake time (L made the cake toppers)!
It was a beautiful wedding and a memorable night. Congratulations to my sister L and my b-i-l D! I was happy to be there as maid-of-honour! If you'd like to check out more pics, their photographer Shang Chen did an amazing job!
Route 6 North Eastham, Massachusetts 508.255.0799 website
The Box Lunch serves wraps or as they call them, rollwiches. After reading through the many items, the Californian ($6.39) appealed to me the most: turkey, mayo, tomatoes, avocado & alfalfa sprouts. I paid extra and added bacon. The combination of ingredients was awesome. I loved the saltiness of the bacon, the creaminess of the avocado and the earthiness of the sprouts. The turkey also tasted like it was of high quality.
The Box Lunch.
It was only when I came back the second time and ordered the same wrap, but asked for whole wheat that I realized that my first rollwich was a pita and the second time a tortilla. I preferred the pita much better. However, it didn't matter much since the second time I tried to eat it was on the day of L's wedding and I couldn't stomach much more than half anyway...!
The Box Lunch has many locations across Cape Cod. It also has a largeselection of Cape Cod chips not available elsewhere (perfect for the chip lover like me)! If you're looking for a lunch to bring the beach, this is the perfect place to stop by!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was expecting to eat a lot of seafood on my trip to Cape Cod. So what's better than enjoying fried seafood on my first day on the Cape? While I did read Mark Bittman's article on Cape Cod restaurants, I didn't remember to bring his recommendations with me that day. It was nice to see that he had included PJ's Seafood on his list after I paid a visit.
We were five (my mom, her husband H, my sister L, her soon-to-be husband D and myself) and decided to start with 2 8 oz. chowders: the clam chowder $3.99 and the lobster chowder for $4.99. The lobster chowder had large chunks of lobster and was our favourite while the clam chowder was a little too rich/creamy for my blood. But you can't go to New England without having clam chowder!
Chowder two ways with the mandatory crackers!
Next, we shared a seafood platter for $23.99, made up of flounder, whole clams, shrimp and scallops. My favourite? The huge scallops, fished right in Cape Cod. They were big and sweet, and just delicious! Nothing beats fresh seafood, and scallops are definitely one of my faves! Not to say that the remaining seafood wasn't good either; the shrimps were a close second in my book!
Seafood platter and a scallop up close!
And just because we were having fried, fatty food anyway, we ordered a basket of sweet potato criss-cross fries. I didn't even touch the regular fries that came with the seafood platter because I enjoyed these so much. I love criss-cross fries and that it was made up with sweet potato? Even better!
Sweet potato criss-cross fries.
What a first great seafood meal! Cape Cod is definitely my kind of place!
