It’s high summer, and time to hit those tucked-away seasonal restaurants while you can.
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Bring the whole family or a passel of friends and a stocked cooler to one of Maine’s classic seafood shacks. Order a pint of fried clams, steamed lobster, an over-sized haddock sandwich, a hot dog.
You find these casual restaurants along Route One or Main Streets, but many more are hidden in coastal pockets and harbors. Locals and visitors sit side by side, sun-baked and sandal-footed, chowing down by the sea at dusk and calling it dinner. We decided to do the same for this column. Haute cuisine it’s not, but delicious and memorable such a meal certainly can be.
We coiled down one of the peninsulas of Harpswell to Cundy’s Harbor to land at the picturesque Morse’s at Holbrook’s. The snack bar and wharf was completely rebuilt in 2009, part of the Holbrook Community Foundation’s mission. The nonprofit organized in 2005 to preserve and restore the working waterfront property and save it from private residential development. While this corner of Maine isn’t all that far from Portland, the community has a Down-east feel the way that the city’s coastal suburbs do not.
This is the second season the Morse family has run Holbrook’s. The eatery still bears the sign from the previous operators: Holbrook’s Wharf and Lobster Grille. The Morses are also the folks behind Morse’s Drive-In on Bath Road near Bowdoin College and Morse’s Cribstone Grill, new this season, on Bailey Island.
We ponied up to the window and ordered with abandon. Ten minutes later, a very loud loudspeaker announced our red plastic trays were laden and ready to retrieve. How the swallow chicks that nest atop that speaker survive I’ll never know.
Creamy fish chowder ($4.99 for a big cup, a bowl is $6.99) was very good — full of haddock and potatoes and seasoned with dill and other herbs. It was not quite the Dolphin Marina’s (see my rave of July 3) but close. The lobster stew ($6.99 cup, $12.99 bowl) struck us as cream and lobster and not much else. Each soup got this blissful accompaniment: biscuits split and toasted on the grill. Goodbye, oyster crackers.
We enjoyed a pint of fried clams ($14.99, fluctuates with market), dunking the fresh and tender seafood gems with a golden but plain-tasting coating into a basic tartar sauce.
I liked the fact that Holbrook’s lobster roll comes in two sizes. The classic preparation is delicious: a split-top hot dog roll grilled on the exterior, the insides heaped with cold lobster meat, a trace amount of mayonnaise to bind it together ($14.99). The smaller version comes on a finger roll for $9.99. You can get this portion and add clams or a main-dish salad and not feel stuffed by meal’s end.
Salad at a clam shack? Yes, and a decent one, too. A large portion of spring mix greens came dotted with strawberries, blueberries, dried cranberries, mandarin oranges, red onion, green pepper, tomato, chopped walnuts and feta cheese ($8.95). A homemade, slightly sweet salad dressing loaded with toasted sesame and poppy seeds matched the fruity combination quite well.
You can use this salad as a base and add a protein, choosing from the restaurant’s seafood options — fried scallops, haddock, shrimp, etc. — to make a meal. We went with the grilled chicken ($9.99), which grilled up rubbery, unfortunately.
Fried scallops (dinner platter is $15.99) were tender and satisfying and would have topped the salad better. French fries were the lackluster frozen variety. For a dollar more, choose the sweet potato fries; they are thickly cut with squishy, meaty insides. The cole slaw, like so many, was fine but undistinguished. A finger roll completed the plate.
Holbrook’s “dining room” is a long, mostly outside deck loosely divided into three sections. A collection of wire mesh tables with chairs and picnic benches sits closest to the water. It’s followed by four tables in a middle section protected from weather by a roof and clear plastic sheets. A few tables sit at the front, near the order window and the grass. Most allow views of a classic Maine working waterfront mixed with pleasure craft, sea ledges, and nearby forested islands. It’s a splendid view.
If you crave dessert, be advised that no pastry chef is hard at work at Holbrook’s preparing homemade goodies. The brownie sundae has a from-a-mix bar topped with vanilla ice cream, aerosol whipped cream, jimmies (a.k.a. sprinkles, if you’re from away) and a cherry. Whoopie pies are brought in from Wicked Whoopies. Our strawberry shortcake ($3.95), composed by the same young woman who took our order at the window, was disappointingly short of strawberries, and this was berry season. From time to time a homemade pie appears among the options.
But when it comes to seafood, the quality is under control at Holbrook’s. And that’s what you came for anyway. Mix in a captivating waterfront setting, and you’ve got a slice of summer heaven.
Nancy Heiser is an independent writer and editor near Portland. Her work has appeared in many national and regional publications.
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