Sweet and Sour in Boston

Seeing as OU and UW are both on bye week, we decided to do a day trip on Saturday. (Honestly, I probably could have stayed in and watched football all day, but Abby was getting a little burnt out on college football.) After flights to Miami and London did not drop into the $85 round trip range, we settled on Rockport, MA. Abby had gone here as a kid, camping in Cape Ann with her family, and she said it was a fun day trip spot.

We started with a trip for lunch to Woodman's Historic Seafood Restaurant in Essex. Their website is: http://www.woodmans.com/









Right as we walked in, we saw all these lobsters being prepared. I decided that before the day was over, I was going to have lobster. However, this place is fried seafood heaven so the lobster was going to wait. We ordered the jumbo shrimp platter, which comes with onion rings and fries and also a cup of their award winning clam chowder. (Whenever I see jumbo shrimp on the menu, I always assume it will be those freaking huge prawns that you get in Asian restaurants...dunno why, but I do.) The shrimp were some of the best fried shrimp I've had in a while. The batter was light and had some sweetness to it. The onion rings, which Abby remembered being amazing, were just that. Again, the batter makes the rings. Everything that was fried, was very good. The "award winning" clam chowder on the other hand was a bit of a disappointment. It wasn't that the chowder was not tasty, because it did have some decent flavor. It was just so watery. I'm used to chowder being a little thicker I guess. There were huge, and I mean HUGE, pieces of clam in there which made up for some of the wateriness. I give Woodman's a solid 3 1/2 out of 5.

After Woodman's we went to Hammond's Castle. I guess this somewhat eccentric rich inventor built a miedeveil castle for him and his wife. It is now a museum. A pretty kick ass museum! I won't bore you with the countless pics we took, but if you ever have a chance to go, it's well worth the $10 entry fee. The tour will last about 1-2 hours, depending on how much of the details you want to soak in. The view alone from the back of the castle is well worth the trip.

After a stop to climb some special rocks in Gloucester, we headed to Rockport. Once we arrived we noticed why the free parking with $1 shuttle about 2 miles outside of town seemed to be a good idea. We circled the main strip of Rockport a few times until we found a great, great parking spot. Once we were parked, we walked around looking at all the shops and sitting on the rocks.






As much as I hate to do it, I have to give props to Phantom Gourmet for letting me know about Roy Moore Lobster Company. I've seen Roy Moore on various episodes of the purple reviewer's show and was always intrigued. It's not really a restaurant, most people ordering their lobsters to go and there is no formal dining area. You basically order up a lobster, they steam it right there and after a few hacks with a knife you are given some butter and handi-wipes and that's it. There are seats in the back on their deck and a sink that you can use to wash up.




Now I'm not normally the biggest fan of lobster. I think it's expensive and too much work, preferring the cheaper crab. But I was in Rockport and at $12.95 for 1 1/8th pound of lobster seemed like a great deal. Plus, a place like Roy Moore, you just don't pass up.

Here's a pic of me with the lobster prior to eating:



We dig in and I was able to get the whole claw out without losing any meat. I dipped in in the butter, and BAM!!!!! Unholy goodness entered my mouth. That was when I knew that this dead crustacean was the tastiest of it's kind I will ever know. I quickly devoured the claw and went to the tail. After ripping it out with some of the yellow and green gooey bits on it, I dipped and again was just amazed at how good it was. The yellow and green gooey bits were even better that I could imagine. I opened up the carcass and looked for any more meat, picking at it like a vulture on a dead animal. It was incredible! Finally, we decided there was nothing more edible on the poor, tasty beast, we cleaned up and told the workers at Roy Moore how incredible our experience was. They seemed happy to hear that, even though I'm sure they hear it all the time.

Here's a shot of me after our lobster snack:



My thumbs up and huge giddy smile says it all. Roy Moore Lobster gets a 5 out of 5!

Oh, after we walked around a bit, we found a nice spot on some rocks away from others and I asked Abby to marry me and she said yes.