Montauk

We spent the long weekend in Montauk, New York, a sea side community at the very tip of Long Island. To get to Montauk, you have to pass the heart of what people call the Hamptons. I had not appreciated quite how ritzy those places were until I saw the Tiffany & Co. in the middle of what was clearly otherwise just a series of small fishing villages. Why, precisely, anyone needs a Tiffany's in a fishing village is unclear to me, but there it is.

I'm going to post a number of more specific observations and notes, but I'll first reprise generally for reference. We arrived on Friday, settled in at the perfectly adequate Sun N' Sound hotel, and then headed to the Montauk Harbor area in search of food. My research (i.e, trolling Chowhound for 15 minutes before I left) had told me that Gosman's Dock was a good place to start, so we hit the main restaurant for an excellent lobster roll and lobster salad, served overlooking the sea. We then went off to explore the area, stopping at an Edy's for a nostalgic (but bad) mint ice cream, and on the way (due to my urging) hit up Gosman's fish market for supplies for the evening. A while later, and with a bottle of local Long Island Reisling, we headed back to the hotel, and I cooked up a skillet dinner of pan roasted potatoes, Long Island wild blackfish, and baby carrots with a local mesclun salad (picture forthcoming). The next day, breakfast was organic eggs with some perfectly bad pumpernickel bread from the Montauk Bake Shop (more on this later) and coffee. We visited the Montauk Point Lighthouse Park for some delightful wandering (except for rude employees at the snack bar, and some party pooping visiters who mocked the lighthouse) and ended up on Duryea's Lobster Deck for some mussels (delicious) and another lobster roll (also delicious). Were it not for the swarms of odd, throughly disgusting flies plaguing the sea air, it would have been a truly wonderful meal. Then it was off to Nick's beach for some further wanderin', and diverted ourselved to Gig 668 for what they claimed was "artisan gelato". Chewing through the gummy, flavorless roasted pistachio and coffee flavors, we decided it was neither. Why there isn't anyone making ice cream at a sea side resort town is beyond me. Later we bought another bottle of wine from the good people at Finest Kind Wine shop, which we took back home with some snacks to nibble before heading out for dinner.

That set the stage for the great wine debacle of 2008, about which more later. All I'll say now is that it involved buying another corkscrew, coffee filters, lots of pulling, and a much delayed meal.

When we did eventually eat, it was at Gosman's again, but this time we tackled the pure lobster itself. Delicious, except that we much preferred the boiled to the broiled article. As wonderful as the seafood was, we spent the next twenty minutes stewing jokingly that the waitress stole my girlfriend's coleslaw from under her nose. I realize you want to go home. But it was good. Why take it?

We headed home the next morning, sated and a little more tan, except for a minor detour about which I WILL NOT talk about. As I say, more detailed thoughts and pictures will follow.