Text 19679, 61 rader
Skriven 2012-01-07 13:21:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 38
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Another meal with Link, at Dolphin Seafood in Natick, an
offshoot of the place by the same name in Cambridge, which
I used to frequent in bygone years. We had sort of headed
west randomly and found ourselves in this town but way
south of the restaurant row of rte 9. I am unfamiliar with
this region and allowed the GPS to be broken out to look
for a place to eat, and, wonder of wonders, Dolphin was
about 2 miles from where we were, so we went to investigate.
It's gone kind of suburban upscale, and we were underdressed
again, no problem as we looked able to spend more than most
of the tables, which were populated with the elderly and the
lame and halt, who had come for the early bird specials, which
are $8-14 for soup or salad, a main course, and dessert. For
$11 you can get a lobster roll on this deal, so you can
imagine that it's bargain hunter city from 4 to 6. 

We told our waiter that we were there mostly for the beer, of
which the most interesting was the rather mild but tasty
Berkshire Brewing IPA, of which we had several. We would,
however, order a few things from the appetizer menu, one by
one, and maybe a main course.

Started with fried calamari, which the guy skillfully upsold
to the house special calamari, for a couple bucks more - much
better, he said, my favorite dish, he said. This turned out to
be squid (lots of tentacles, yum) in marinara sauce (semi-yum)
with pesto drizzled over (pseudo-yum) and Parmesan (I asked for
it on the side). This all in an enormous quart plus fried
tortilla basket. Less the pieces with pesto that I forked over
to Link, the dish was suitable for me. Suitable was an
understatement - this was a great dish. We even ate the
tomato-soaked somewhat oily tortilla shell. I was ready to
get another serving, but oysters were coming.

An exploratory half dozen were superb - best I had in 2011,
and this was December 30. They tasted right out of the ocean,
and though not from the brackish water that makes oysters fat
but less tasty, they were very plump. We abandoned our plan to
get more squid or the mussels, or even the mustard-sauce
bluefish for which the place is famous; instead we kept eating
oysters until my pocketbook was nearly exhausted.

There were a few more bucks there, and we really needed some
dessert, so I inquired about the Maryland crab cakes. They
are excellent, the guy said. Lots of lump crab meat. Where are
they from? I asked. He thought they were from Maryland but was
not sure. So I ordered them, and, huge comedown, they were just
plain lousy - flattish patties of starch with little or no real
protein. In fact, they were the saltier first cousin to the
lobster cakes that Clean Dave had got from the dollar store.
Adding injury to insult, they were just this side of burned.
I should have sent them back, but the rest of the meal had been
so good ... ah, shoot, I should have sent them back angrily.

The bill was large but not that large - at another place we'd
have spent more than that without the crab cakes (my tardy self-
justification for being a wimp).

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