Exactly one year ago, my family and I were in Cape Cod celebrating my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary.  For a last lunch before heading home, we ate at Spanky’s Clam Shack in Hyannis; it was where I had a terrific lobster roll, and where my dad polished off an enormous bowl of seafood stew and an entire lobster Caesar salad, piled high with chunks of lobster meat.

We were back at the Cape this weekend — when my dad mentioned he’d brought a Spanky’s menu with him, I knew we were making a return visit.  Once he gets it in his head he wants to eat somewhere, he’s an unstoppable force.

But first, on Saturday, we had lunch at The Lobster Boat in West Yarmouth.

The patio seating was right on the water.

New York may rule the pizza and bagel world, but New England is the master of the chowder universe, and I refuse to debate this.  Where else can you get such a thick, creamy, briny cup of clam chowder?

Dad’s lobster bisque looked great too.

Behold my beautiful scallop roll.  Huge, succulent scallops lightly coated and fried.  That’s summer on a plate right there.

I liked the bathroom signs.

Dinner was a good old fashioned meal of burgers, dogs and sausage on the grill.

The next night my sister and I did the cooking.  Jen whipped up a great jambalaya using the extra sausage from the night before…

… and a crispy salad of cucumbers, peppers, cherry tomatoes, olives and feta.

I handled grill duty, trying out a recipe of sage-mustard pork tenderloin with apple cranberry relish from one of Jen’s issues of Cook’s Illustrated.  Very easy to do, and it came out well.

While the meat was grilling, my brother-in-law, Joe, posed an interesting question: “If you could only eat from one animal, would you rather have a cow or a pig?”  I immediately responded, cow, for the fact that you’d always have ground chuck for hamburgers, plus many different types of cuts.  But Joe pointed out the wonder of the pig: bacon, pork chops, pork tenderloin, ribs… Now I’m torn. Which would you choose?

This is Spanky’s Clam Shack I was telling you about.

It’s another great place to sit outside.

The seafood stew, chock full of pieces of fish and other seafood goodies.

My nieces Alex and Emma enjoyed their chicken fingers and fish and chips.

Emma, especially, was eager to show off her fries, carefully dipped in ketchup.

My lunch was a home run — fish cakes, baked beans and Boston brown bread.

The fish cakes — like a fine crab cake — were perfectly crispy, moist and soft on the inside, and full of flavor from onion and celery.

And the brown bread — my God — how have I not eaten this before??  I’ve learned it’s a traditional New England food, accompanied by baked beans.  The bread is dense and chewy, sweet with molasses and raisins, and it tasted like it’d been grilled in butter.  It’s no wonder colonists had short life expectancies.

(I snapped the pic of my plate and Joe asked, “How come you take pictures of your food?”  I told him it was for my blog.  He’s watched me take pictures of our meals for a year — all this time he must have thought he had some sort of weirdo freak of a brother-in-law with a food fetish.)

And finally, here’s my dad’s lobster Caesar salad.

It’s hard to tell from this angle how much fresh lobster was piled onto that thing.  It was huge.  And he finished it all.

Two years, two successful lunches at Spanky’s.  If we hit the Cape again next year, we’re going for three.

The Lobster Boat
681 Main St.
West Yarmouth, MA
508-775-0486

Spanky’s Clam Shack
138 Ocean St.
Hyannis, MA
508-771-2770