Menu
Garden Salad • Drop Biscuits
This summer menu is a celebration of memorable dishes from restaurants we’ve loved on vacation. Once we find that special place – with the inviting atmosphere (preferably outside, bonus points for a water view), the mouth-watering menu, the signature dish made from local ingredients – it becomes part of our tradition, and I want to go back again and again.
Back at home, I like to make the memories last by recreating the dishes we loved best. On a recent Saturday, I revisited a few of our all-time favorite spots on the Massachusetts and Maine coasts, all without leaving the comfort of home.
Devils on Horseback (The Impudent Oyster, Chatham, MA)
When John and I were first married the economy was in a recession, and we were both humanities majors with dreams of working in creative careers but stuck in entry-level corporate jobs. In other words, we were broke. Then I quit my entry-level job to start a catering business, and we were really broke. The only vacation we could afford was camping. I’d grown up spending summer vacations on Cape Cod and was so attached to it, John had no choice but to accept it as “our place”. We would camp at a cute little campground called the Shady Knoll, spend our days on the beach and our nights by the campfire, but once or twice during our stay we’d treat ourselves to dinner at a restaurant.
The Impudent Oyster was – and still is – a special place for us. Tiny, tightly packed and dimly lit, with white-clothed tables so miniscule they try to take your bread away when the appetizer comes because there’s no place to put it. (We don’t allow that to happen – no blah basket, their bread is a hot, crusty, herb-flecked country French loaf, served whole on a cutting board for you to slice for yourself.) The waitstaff are sophisticated, with that slightly condescending air that can make you feel like you might not be good enough to eat there. But they’ll be attentive and let you take your time.
The chef does a marvelous thing with sole, egg-battered and pan-sautéed and topped with crab and asparagus. But the dish that’s non-negotiable for us is the appetizer of sea scallops wrapped in bacon and doused in lemon butter sauce. We can’t stop ourselves, we order it Every. Single. Time.
Drop Biscuits (The Arbor, Orleans, MA)
My love affair with the Arbor started even further back than my relationship with the Oyster. I remember my parents taking me to the Arbor when I was a kid, and I remember it as an almost theatrical experience. Sadly, the Arbor is closed now, but if you were lucky enough to go there in its heyday, you’ll never forget it. Quirky doesn’t even begin to describe the décor. The menu was extensive, creative, different every night, and not written down anywhere. The waitstaff memorized it – not just the names of the dishes but lengthy descriptions of the ingredients and preparation – and recited it like a soliloquy at the table while you sat there, rapt, trying to take in every word. I always felt terrible when I had to ask, “Could you repeat that one, the third from the end, with the bluefish…were there tomatoes in the sauce…?”
No matter what you ordered for a main dish, the meal always started with a fresh garden salad, dressed with their house lemon-yogurt dressing and a little dollop of crushed pineapple. With the salad came a big, fresh-baked, crusty-tipped, drop-style buttermilk biscuit.
(Are you noticing a bit of a theme here? I will never be one of those people who pushes away the bread basket in order to “save room” for the rest of the meal. If the bread is boring, then sure. But if it’s special, I’m going to enjoy it without guilt, even if that means taking more of my entrée home in a doggy bag.)
Lazy Man’s Lobster (The Arbor, Orleans, MA)
The Arbor also introduced us to Lazy Man’s Lobster. I’ve seen it once or twice since, but it’s a rare thing, and a beautiful thing if you can get it. What’s more luxurious than a lobster that someone else has already cracked and shelled for you, then bathed in sherry-spiked butter? Making this for yourself at home is not quite so lazy. But you can boil and prep the lobsters early in the day, and then poach them in the flavored butter just before serving, for an experience almost as pampering as a meal at the Arbor, minus the mismatched china and the long recitation from the waiter.
Blueberry Cheesecake (Jordan Pond House, Seal Harbor, ME)
One summer I grudgingly agreed to forego the Cape and instead we spent a week at Acadia National Park in Maine, which I admit was worth the sacrifice. We were over camping by this point, and we stayed at the beautiful Bar Harbor Inn. I don’t remember much about our meals there or elsewhere in Bar Harbor; all I remember is the Jordan Pond House, and all I remember about the Jordan Pond House is the Blueberry Cheesecake. We ordered one piece, to share. The filling was made in the New York style – thick and rich and deliciously dry – and the topping was bursting with tiny, super-sweet lowbush Maine blueberries. Sitting outside at a picnic table overlooking the tranquil pond, we fell into reverential silence as we savored every bite. When we went back the next day, we each got our own piece.
And that completes this summer vacation restaurant roundup. We enjoyed this nostalgic dinner on a Saturday night in early July, and then two weeks later we were off to the Cape for the first time in two long years (no trip last year due to the pandemic). Having gone through our camping phase and then a long hotel phase, we’ve now settled in to cottage life. We love the slow pace and the room to spread out, the outdoor shower, the sun going down over the pond, and the long evenings on the deck listening to music, like this Country Sunset playlist, a blend of Country, Gospel and a little Bluegrass I created specially for the trip. Listen on Spotify.
The Game Plan
- Bake the cheesecake and make the blueberry sauce the day before, or early in the day.
- Cook and shell the lobsters early in the day, then chill the meat until needed.
- Bake the drop biscuits early in the day.
- A couple of hours before dinner, prepare – then enjoy – the appetizer.
- Shortly before serving, reheat the drop biscuits, assemble the salad, and finish preparing the lobster dish.
- After dinner, slice and serve the cheesecake.
- For a complete game plan including details on timing and sequencing for all steps, click on the image below.
