Tag: Nantucket restarants

The Boarding House: Nantucket comfort food

T he Boarding House is Seth and Angela Raynor’s popular mid range restaurant on Federal St. The menu can best be described as “comfort food,” with entrees ranging from $27 to $37 and appetizers from $14 to $18. The service is always fast and informal, but you will definitely need a reservation: they are very popular.

While there certainly are seafood entrees on the menu, this is one restaurant where you can get away from Nantucket’s pescatarian culture.

We visited The Boarding House last Friday with their crispy fried chicken in mind ($27). It’s served with a biscuit and a dish of a jam that changes from day to day. Ours was apple butter. It also comes with a very interesting collard green slaw and pickled cucumbers. The chicken was crispy, with the batter slightly sweetish, and the pieces cooked to perfection without being at all dried out.

For an appetizer, we tried their Caesar salad: Baby Kale and Romaine Caesar with garlic bread croutons (14), white boquerones (that means anchovies) and copious amounts of grated Parmesan cheese. This salad was excellent, almost big enough for two to share.

We also tried their Homemade Riccotta toast ($16) served with black mission figs, local fennel pollen (really!), sea salt and sorghum. With the figs and all this was more substantial than it sounds and made quite an excellent appetizer as well.

There were really only a few choices for dessert: Dark Chocolate Cremeux, Raspberry Pavlova (apparently you drool when you read about it) BoHo cookies and milk, ice creams and cheeses. We decided to forgo them, although we know their cookies are outstanding.

Our bill, with 3 glasses of wine was $136, including tax. We go back every year.

Galley Beach: excellent but pricey

Galley Beach offers picturesque dining on Cliffside Beach, with a view of the ocean and sunset. Under the (returning) Chef W Scott Osif, the menu is again highly imaginative and very tasty. It is also almost unreasonably pricey, topping out with a jaw-dropping $58 veal chop entrée and a $59 lobster entrée. The complete set of entrée prices are almost all over $40: 42,45,40,59,39,58,54. The appetizers are somewhat more reasonable, running from$16 to $25. Portion sizes are again good-sized, unlike under the prior chef’s reign. It is perfectly possible to make a meal out of two appetizers and feel completely satisfied.

There is no doubt that you will enjoy your meal and excellent service at Galley Beach, and some of the dishes are definitely worth sampling.

We begin our evening with an appetizer Summer Vegetable Tasting ($19), made up of tomatoes, radishes, broccolini, melon,sunchoke and greens. Thoughtfully composed, this light appetizer was a welcome relief from Nantucket overkill.

Our other appetizer was a truly excellent clam chowder ($16), made with Yukon gold potatoes and applewood smoked bacon. It was thick and bursting with clams and potatoes. Surely the best clam chowder on the island.

For one entrée, we chose the crab cake ($27), served with cucumber and tomato mint salad and a champagne beurre blanc. While this was nominally an appetizer, it was large and so filling it made an excellent dinner.

Our other entrée was Sea Scallops ($44) served with kale, pickled apple, celery root and a lemon coriander dressing. The four large scallops were almost more than we could eat, but the accompaniments were fascinating and went well with the scallops.

Finally, we succumbed to a dessert, splitting an excellent Crème Brulee ($15) served with two huge blackberries. The crust was crispy and more important, the underlying custard was warm and not just pulled from the fridge and torched.

Overall we had an excellent meal, which with two glasses of $22 chardonnay set us back $187 including tax but before tip. Galley Beach has set itself up with price points as a special occasion venue, or for the wealthy and this is too bad, because everyone would enjoy eating there. The view and service are excellent, and if you bring plenty of money, it is a terrific experience.

Incidentally, it appears that they have dropped the $15 valet parking of the past two years, which was really just annoying.

The Grey Lady: Nantucket’s newest seafood restaurant

You might think that The Grey Lady would be a perfect name for a Nantucket restaurant, but the operators of the 2 Chin’s Way establishment already have branches in New York and Aspen. This Grey Lady is on Chin’s Way, just next to the Island Kitchen. Chin’s way is little more than an entrance to the parking lot for the two restaurants and runs between West Creek and Dave St, pretty much directly across from Stop and Shop.

The restaurant is in the building formerly occupied by the Bamboo Supper Club, with a long thin dining area and a bar on the other side of the wall. The décor is light an airy.

Of the four things we ordered, the Lobster Roll was far awn away the best, although it was $38. It was a buttered brioche roll filled to the brim with warm, buttered lobster. They also offer it cold with mayonnaise, but this is the one you want. The lobster roll is served with copious hot French fries, and makes a very filling meal by itself.

We ordered Crispy Fried Oysters ($14) served with Buffalo style hot sauce, blue cheese dressing and shaved celery. Now, to us, Buffalo hot sauce is half Frank’s bottled sauce and half butter, but this was just Frank’s sauce dumped on all the oysters. The hot pepper smell was simply choking and the strong hot sauce flavor completely overpowered the oysters.

Our other appetizer was a pair of Crab Cakes ($15) served with fresh tomatoes. The crab cakes were meaty and not filled with a lot of bread crumbs, but lacked much flavor: Baltimore style crab cakes usually have a mustard flavor. And without any tartar sauce, they were kind of dry.

Finally, our other entrée was Pan Roasted Native Flounder ($26) served with toasted corn, zucchini, Italian sausage, salsa verde and white bean puree. Unfortunately the flounder were too brown and overcooked and dry. And it really didn’t seem to make sense that sausage was served with the flounder.

Our bill with 2 beers and a glass of wine was $132.66 with tax but before tip. Our waitress was very fast and efficient, but the kitchen work needs some serious rethinking.

Black-Eyed Susan’s continues to excel

Black-Eyed Susan’s at 10 India St on Nantucket, has the charm of a sort of “hand-made” restaurant, but a very good one. We’ve eaten there mostly for breakfasts, but they have an intriguing dinner menu as well. At breakfast, they have most of the usual dishes, plus a number of fascinating additions.

The restaurant is a lot of fun, because the kitchen is right there and you can watch them make your meal.

Portugues scramble — Portuguese Scramble

At this visit, we tried their Portuguese Scramble: scrambled eggs with linguica, tomatoes, spinach and garlic, and found it excellent, especially when served with the Nantucket Bakeshop’s Sunflower Oatmeal bread. The linguica sausage added a mild hotness to the scramble, and the tomatoes and garlic added an excellent mixture of flavors.

For our other entrée, we had their delicious Eggs Benedict, served with an ample slice of tender ham and a nice, lemony hollandaise sauce on a toasted English muffin. Not too many restaurants do this one right, but Black-Eyed Susan’s decidedly does.

On weekends, you will probably see a line for breakfast/brunch, but they move quickly and you probably won’t wait too long. In addition to their indoor seating, they have a lovely back garden with more seating in good weather.

Black-Eyed Susan’s is open from April through October, but be forewarned: they do not take credit cards. However, they are perfectly willing to wait for you to run to the nearest ATM. They told me this happens quite often!