Nantucket Roundup

I spent a long weekend on Nantucket, celebrating my first anniversary. There was a Nor'easter and a hurricane, but we still managed to have a good time. While on Nantucket, I was honestly surprised by the prices. All food and drink were about 20% higher than what I would expect for the equivalent on the mainland. Even for someone who's used to ordering a $10 martini, somehow the $12 martini seemed way out of line. While on the island, we sampled several types of establishments, some were amazing and some should serve as a warning to others to move along.

Veranda House Breakfast We stayed at the Veranda House. The hotel was hip & cool looking, but the breakfasts were terrible! On Day 1, we had a pastry basket with 3 types of pastries: croissants, scali bread and cranberry nut bread. The cranberry nut bread was nice, but other two types seemed dry (almost as though they had come out of the freezer). For a first course, we each had half a pear and a spoonful of yogurt, artfully presented. The main course was cold muesli mixed with yogurt. Good, but cold and not very filling. On Day 2, we were happy to see the scali bread replaced with blueberry muffins in the breakfast basket. Doh! The muffins were stale too! Then, we proceeded to laugh out loud when the first course was a spoonful of yogurt and yesterday's cold muesli again. The main course was the darn stale scali bread, toasted and served with brie (odd breakfast choice) and sliced out-of-season, underripe strawberries. We joked that breakfast on Day 3 would include strawberries as a first course, since we were now on to Veranda House's plan of transforming leftovers into the first course. Day 3 -- strawberries and yogurt for the first course. We are amazing prophets! Seriously though, the breakfasts were terrible!

Straight Wharf Dinner We dined on the bar-side of Straight Wharf. It was mostly just us in the bar, the service was amazing, the drinks tasty and the table in the corner romantic. We started with the spiced almonds and an antipasto platter. The antipasto was amazing and included some homemade fresh mozzarella. A very fine treat! For main dishes, we had the pesto hand-cut spaghetti (side question: how does one "hand-cut" spaghetti? Linguine, I get, but spaghetti is round...) and some chicken thighs that were served with pomegranate and some sort of barley. Very tasty! We passed on dessert and made our way back home. The bar menu is completely different than the formal restaurant (which is MUCH fancier) and were happy with the result.

Black-Eyed Susan's Dinner One night for dinner, we decided to brave the complicated reservation system and dined at Black-Eyed Susan's, a tiny 20-person restaurant. We landed the primo table by the windows. To start, we had a "deconstructed" version of bruschetta, with slices of heirloom tomatoes served on toasted bread and topped with chunks of mozzarella. Drizzles of a basil oil and balsamic were tasty. I thought the dish was beautiful, but I wasn't digging the large slices of tomatoes. For entrees, we had the fish of the day, which was a halibut in a coconut-Thai style curry, served with fresh corn cut off the cob and small fingerling potatoes. The potatoes were good, but filler -- I focused on the corn and the fish! The other entree we got was the pork confit with sour cherry -- rich, decadent and amazing.