Provincetown, the "Outer Cape," and Wellfleet Too

[liamsaunt]

On 10/15/2023 at 11:54 AM, TdeV said:

That Chicken pesto alfredo penne WITH lobster and shrimp sure looks good though. Won't go to waste, I hope!

 

It did not go to waste.  My husband's brother took it home with him.  

 

Belated end to this visit.  Sunday we went back to Oysterfest to watch the shuck off finals.  It was a lot less crowded, which was nice.  The fellow who won was from neighboring Eastham.  

 

 

After the shuck off they had an auction to raise money for the local school.  This fisherman contributed a 16 pound lobster.  He said the winner could keep it, but he was hoping that he would be allowed to put it back in the water with a GPS tag so that it could be tracked.

 

 

It went for $3,000 to a vegetarian who wanted it back in the water.  

 

We didn't eat anything at the festival other than a shared special Oysterfest gelato from Gelato Joy 

 

 

 

 

Next day we went for a couple of beach walks.  At Fisher Beach in Truro, we saw our first shark fin from shore.  It was patrolling down by this bird filled jetty.  Pretty cool

 

 

Then we went to Provincetown for a visit to my favorite bookstore

 

 

and a long walk at Herring Cove beach

 

 

Followed by dinner at Ciro and Sal's.  It was too cold to sit out in their lovely courtyard

 

 

But the inside was cozy too

 

 

We shared an order of mussels in marinara

 

 

and then husband had shrimp scampi, which he did not enjoy.  He said the garlic was bitter and raw

 

 

My shrimp puttanesca was better, so we shared that 

 

 

Which brings us to Tuesday, and time to go home.  We stopped for one last hike at Fort Hill in Eastham to take in the views.  The foliage was starting to change

 

 

 

 

And then had lunch at Mac's in Chatham.  Warm lobster roll for husband

 

 

Shrimp fried rice for me

 

 

...and that's probably it for us on Cape Cod until next year.  

 

 

[rotuts]

@liamsaunt 

 

thank you for taking the time

 

to take us along.

 

and the menu's

[liamsaunt]

Another year, another return to the Cape.  We are not on the Outer Cape right now, that is coming later this summer, but I figured I would put this visit here rather than starting a new thread.  Instead, we are in Falmouth for the week.  We've never stayed on this part of the Cape before.  My initial impression is that the town is charming, but much more densely populated than the Outer Cape.  I imagine that in the summer it would be uncomfortably crowded.  

 

We arrived Friday night. The house we are staying in is right on the water, and not elevated up on a dune like the places we stay at in Wellfleet.  I would not want to be here during a big storm.  Here's the front yard.

 

 

We can see Martha's Vineyard right off shore (not in this picture though), and can watch the ferries going back and forth from Woods Hole to the island.  

 

My sister and nephew joined us for the weekend.  The rest of the week will be just my husband and me.  I'm planning on doing some cooking to amuse myself during the day.  This weekend, though, we are dining out.  Unfortunately, this area is not known for its dining options.  We are also working around my nephew's food allergy.  Last night we went to an Italian place called Villagio at the Regatta.  No menu pictures, unfortunately.   We ordered a couple of appetizers to share. Clams casino

 

 

Bruschetta

 

 

Calamari (no fried shrimp or lobster on their menu, so my nephew could have some.  He was excited)

 

 

For entrees, my nephew ordered the bolognese (no picture).  The rest of us had cod.  I ordered cod picatta

 

 

Sister ordered cod toscana

 

 

and husband had cod limone.  

 

 

The entrees were all massive.  If we had known we would have shared something.  None of us enjoy leftover cod, so unfortunately a lot of it went to waste.  I didn't even taste my pasta.  We were too full to even look at the dessert menu.

 

Yesterday morning, my husband and I went into town to check out the French bakery, Maison Villatte.  This bakery is run by the original baker at PB Boulangerie in Wellfleet, and our understanding was that the two places are fairly similar.  It did indeed look quite familiar.  I took lots of pictures.  Croissants

 

 

 

Muffins

 

 

Tarts

 

 

Quiches

 

 

Fougasse 

 

 

sandwiches

 

 

pastries

 

 

 

And our selections, back at the house.

 

 

 

It would be very dangerous to have a bakery like this at home!

Edited May 5 by liamsaunt (log)

[liamsaunt]

Saturday night we had dinner at the top rated Italian restaurant in town, La Cucina Sul Mare.  We could only get a reservation at 5:30 (a lot of the restaurants close at 8PM in this town).  It was absolutely packed when we arrived.  We ordered four oysters rockefeller to start (one each).  

 

 

And an order of the warm bruschetta at my nephew's request.  Unfortunately this was a soggy and not warm.

 

 

My nephew took a picture of his linguini with giant meatball and said to share it with you.  He said it was very bland.  It's rare for him not to finish a meatball, but he left about half of this plate behind.

 

 

I ordered the swordfish piccata, minus the shrimp garnish.  This was also bland, and oddly lacking in lemon flavor.  I think these purple flowers must be the official garnish of Falmouth-they were on all the plates yesterday too.

 

 

Sister had the linguini with clams.  She said it was...bland!  

 

 

Husband ordered a special of swordfish with clams and sausage.  It came in a tomato sauce that was not mentioned when the server described the dish.  Note the ubiquitous purple flower.

 

 

No dessert, as once again the portions were massive and much food went uneaten.

 

My sister and nephew returned home yesterday, so it's just my husband and me for the rest of the week.  Here's the kitchen at the house.  It has nice views of the water.

 

 

The beach on a gray Cape Cod spring day

 

 

After trudging along the cold and windy beach all morning, we decided the next best thing to do was to go to town and find some ice cream.  That's what you do if you are from New England 🙂

 

Ben and Bill's Chocolate Emporium looked promising.  I am sure we will try most of the options in town before the week is out.  

 

 

The options

 

 

I thought the lobster flavor was probably vanilla with chocolate lobsters in it or something, so I walked down the case to check the sign for it...

 

 

Um.....OK.  I got mint chocolate chip, which was nice and minty but had too many chocolate chunks for my personal taste.  I just ate around most of them.

 

 

All the fish markets in town are closed on Sundays, so we had to eat out again.  We chose Estia, a Greek place.  We started with calamari, which was large enough for about six people.  What we managed to eat was tender and well seasoned.

 

 

I had the shrimp saganaki for my entree.  I think there were 12 large shrimp in there and about three cups of rice.  It was tasty but much too much food.

 

 

Husband ordered the shrimp and swordfish skewers, which also came with grilled vegetables and fries.  

 

 

And both entrees also came with huge salads!  Next time we go out I think we are going to just share something.

 

 

 

[weinoo]

8 hours ago, liamsaunt said:

She said it was...bland!  

 

Well, this is called consistency in the restaurant business!

[liamsaunt]

Yesterday was another gray Cape Cod spring day.  I went out and did a little exploring while my husband worked.  This is the beach that you get access to with the house.

 

 

There is a lot of sand dredging happening in town right now to clear the channels for increased boat traffic and replenish the beaches before the tourist season starts.  The dredger was working directly behind the beach.

 

 

I found a handful of sea glass for my vast collection back home. I picked up a couple of shells too, though I usually only look for sea glass.

 

 

Here's a house under construction near the beach.  There is a lot of new construction happening in town, and all of the houses I have seen being built are quite large.

 

 

Osprey

 

 

I decided to try a different ice cream parlor.  

 

 

Peanut butter caramel.  Too sweet and not worth eating.  Oh well!

 

 

We decided to go out for Mexican food.  Husband had a margarita

 

 

I had cod tacos

 

 

And he had lobster enchiladas.

 

 

Post dinner walk on another beach in town

 

[liamsaunt]

Another note of possible interest about the huge house I posted a picture of yesterday.  I was wondering if perhaps it was an old home that was being restored, which is why it is so close to the beach, so I did some research last night.  It is not, it is new construction.  The current owner tore down the old house that was there (an 8,000 sqft house!) and replaced it with this one.  It's essentially in the footprint of the old house (though the new house is even larger), which is why the town approved it.  I cannot imagine building new construction so close to the ocean in this day and age, but I guess people can do what they want with their money...

 

Yesterday was actually a sunny and warm day, so exploring was in order.  We went to Woods Hole and visited Nobska Lighthouse

 

 

There was a pretty lookout point across the road

 

 

with a good view of the ferry to Martha's Vineyard

 

 

Beach walk

 

 

and then an ice cream stop.  Coconut macadamia and coffee heath bar

 

 

Which necessitated another beach walk, so we drove to the largest beach in Falmouth, Old Silver.  

 

 

 

People were swimming!  That's just crazy

 

 

 

For dinner, we went to town for silly sushi.  We decided to pick two share plates and two rolls to split.

 

Tuna carpaccio 

 

 

Crispy rice with spicy tuna

 

 

And then I picked a jalapeño toro roll and husband chose a tempura shrimp roll with tuna and pineapple

 

 

It's back to gray and rain today, but the sunny day was an unexpected treat.

[liamsaunt]

Yesterday was pretty gray all day. I managed a few beach walks, but didn't take any pictures.  Dinner was at another Italian restaurant in town, Osteria la Civetta.  The menu is pretty small.  

 

 

The interior, kind of cave like.  I took this picture as we were getting ready to leave.  The restaurant had been full earlier, but it emptied out rather quickly as we were finishing up, for reasons we would soon discover...

 

 

We shared some olives and whipped gorgonzola cheese

 

 

Husband had the swordfish pasta

 

 

and I chose the eggplant pasta.

 

 

We shared an affogatto for dessert

 

 

We heard rumbling in the sky as we were heading to the car.  Luckily, our house was not too far from town, because about five minutes after we got home, the sky lit up and it started roaring thunder and slamming lightning down.  There was golf ball sized hail!  I had been offline all day and had no idea that the weather was coming.  When I opened my weather app, the area we were in was purple surrounded by red on the radar!  I had never even seen that before.  Luckily we did not lose power and it was over in about an hour.  Crazy weather.

 

It's back to calm today.  Here's a couple of pictures from my morning walk.

 

 

 

 

[rotuts]

@liamsaunt

 

thank you for the menu.

 

the swordfish w pasta looks very tasty.

[liamsaunt]

Last installment for this trip. Our last meal for this visit was at Bleu, which is one of the best rated restaurants in the area.  Unfortunately, it was by far our least favorite.  Cocktail for my husband.  I checked their online menu, and whatever this is was not listed.  He said it was really unbalanced, both too sweet and too bitter.

 

 

Cotuit oysters.

 

 

Tuna tartare.  This was fine, just a little bland.

 

 

Halibut with asparagus and rice in a pineapple beurre blanc.  The piece of halibut they gave me was the folded over tail, so naturally it was overcooked.  For almost $50, I would have appreciated a better cut of fish.

 

 

However, it was better than my husband's roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and carrots.  I think they cooked the chicken the day before!  It was completely dried out.  The carrots were wildly overcooked too.  We considered sending it back, but I knew I was not going to finish my dish and my husband liked it enough to have some, so he just ate the thigh off the plate and then we swapped.

 

 

A lady at the table behind us ordered the chicken too, and I heard her saying "the sauce is delicious, but the chicken is horrible!"  So I guess it was just an off night.

 

We ordered a trifle to share for dessert.  It was....fine.

 

 

We won't be back to Bleu if we return to this area.  Falmouth is very pretty, but the Outer Cape is where I like to be.  

 

Sea glass haul for the week

 

 

Menauhant beach

 

[rotuts]

@liamsaunt

 

its always disappointing to get sub-par food at a restaurant.

 

What is the triangular item next to the tuna ?

 

than you for taking us along.

 

Ive been to that bakery , in the off-season  few times.  

 

it really fantastic.  love the aroma's of bakeries and patisseries .

 

to that far from Woods Hole and the WHPA

[liamsaunt]

23 hours ago, rotuts said:

@liamsaunt

 

its always disappointing to get sub-par food at a restaurant.

 

What is the triangular item next to the tuna ?

 

than you for taking us along.

 

Ive been to that bakery , in the off-season  few times.  

 

it really fantastic.  love the aroma's of bakeries and patisseries .

 

to that far from Woods Hole and the WHPA

 

The dish was whipped tahini sauce, the tuna, a slaw, and the last thing on the plate is an orange slice.

[rotuts]

@liamsaunt

 

I know I need glasses , for sure

 

sorry for being a pest

 

having visuals issues w this :

 

 

looks Alien or possibly Infectious ?

[liamsaunt]

21 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@liamsaunt

 

I know I need glasses , for sure

 

sorry for being a pest

 

having visuals issues w this :

 

 

looks Alien or possibly Infectious ?

 

 

Oh hahaha!  That was a taro chip.  Sorry I missed that!