I’m going to Hilton Head at the end of the month and that means I need to watch what I eat until then. Hopefully it will be a successful three week diet, but I’ve got a lot of end of the school year activities to get me off track.
June 1
I planned on eating light today, and it started out that way, but we ended up in Harvard Square for dinner and Kelly and I shared meatballs and wings at Grafton Street. If that wasn’t enough to call today a cheat day, my son wanted ice cream and how do I say no to that. I tried the cinnamon toast crunch at JP Licks. I liked the flavor of the ice cream but the cereal was chewy and unpleasant. Don’t get that one.
June 2
Maybe I did a little better today. I only had one meal. I tried to make a Mexican paella with chicken and chorizo. The rice gave me fits. It took a long time to get it cooked properly, but once I did it was good. I only ate about a quarter of the pan and one small tortilla. I’ve got a lot left over so hopefully I’ll get another light meal out of it, even if chorizo isn’t light.
June 3
I know you are probably getting tired of hearing about New London, but the grilled chicken sub was perfect today.
June 4
Kelly and I had the chance to go out to breakfast this morning. We decided on Haute Coffee in Concord. We started with a yummy blueberry-oat bar. Then we each had an egg sandwich, her’s with bacon, mine with ham. I love everything about the sandwich except that the egg is cooked all the way. The yolk is completely hard. Not my thing.
For dinner I made swordfish with tomatoes, onions, and asparagus. We had a half bottle of Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc with it and a little Hilton Head Distillery Island Cream for dessert.
June 8
Kelly picked up lunch at Ken’s. We had the usual, buffalo fingers and the chicken kabob wrap. For dinner we went to The Colonial Inn. We tried their clam chowder, which they sadly don’t make in house, because it was really good. We also got the chicken quesadillas which are always good. With all that, I had a couple Strawberry Collins because, hey, it’s World Gin Day.
June 9
Yesterday packed on the pounds. I had been doing really well this month in preparation for my trip to the beach, but the scale was not my friend this morning. I made a steak salad for dinner with a really good balsamic-dijon dressing.
June 12
It’s been a while since we had some Chinese food, but as you know I’m trying to lose a few pounds before my vacation at the end of the month. So I did my best to be as reasonable as I could. Maybe the scorpion bowl didn’t help, but it was good. In fact, everything was really good. The crispy spicy shrimp had great flavor and the sautéed bok choy was delicious. I need to go back to Beijing more often.
June 14
I grabbed a little light dinner with Michael. First we stopped at 80 Thoreau and I got the scallop appetizer. It was excellent. I also tried two new gins, JCB from France and Porter’s Modern Classic from England. After that, we stopped over at Karma and got an order of Duck Bao.
June 15
Marino and Jamie came over for dinner and I made carnitas, pico de gallo, chipotle sweet potatoes, and mexican rice. We also made several rounds of margaritas tasting three different tequilas, Cimarron, Tres Agaves, and Espolon. We also opened the bottle of strawberry tequila cream I got in the Gatwick Airport duty free shop of all places. It was better than I expected.
June 16
Happy Fathers Day to me. This morning we went out to get donuts to celebrate. We drove out to Ruby Donut in Ayer because it was recently named the best donut in Massachusetts by Yelp. They were almost out of donuts but they had a tray of apple fritter fresh out of the fryer, still warm. I also tried the lemon, the chocolate frosted, and the blueberry cake. I don’t know if they are the best donuts in the state, but they were good. I’ll go back and maybe do a whole write up.
Later we went over to my in-laws. Kelly made my potato salad recipe and sausages, steak, and chicken thighs. I ate way too much and didn’t even take a picture, but Fathers Day is a cheat day.
June 18
Today was a DeNo’s day. I got a medium sub instead of a small one. It took forever to come out and the quality has been down a little lately. Still, it’s the easiest lunch to get at work so I keep going.
June 19
I got blueberry breakfast sausage from Alpine Butcher for Fathers Day, so tonight I made a simple dinner of soft scrambled eggs and sausage.
June 20
Tonight I made a salad, I’m still trying to get my weight down. I mixed lettuce, cilantro and scallions with a lime-cream dressing. Then I topped it with a skillet of corn, black beans, mexican spiced chicken, onion, and jalapeno.
June 21
My wife and I had a day off together and my son had camp so we decided to have some fun and head out to Hampton Beach. On our way, we stopped at Brown’s and Markey’s to compare their chowders as part of the Chowder Quest. We often go to Brown’s but this was my first trip to Markey’s. We also got fried shrimp at both stops. Brown’s is byob (and I did), but Markey’s has a bar and I got a nice rum runner there. After that we took a walk and got some fried dough from Blink’s. It wasn’t as good as I remembered and I got covered in powdered sugar.
For dinner we got some cheese from The Cheese Shop, Murcia al Vino from Spain and Delice des Deux-Sevres from France. They were both goat cheese and very good, but I liked the French one the best.
June 22
We had dinner at Mario’s. We are settled in our order, a Mediterranean salad and a meatball sub. It was great. After that we went and got some lemon-pineapple custard at Rancatore’s.
June 25
It has been a while since we visited Ginger in Bedford. It used to be the only sushi restaurant nearby, but with Karma around, we don’t get there very much. I started with two old favorites, a Samurai cocktail and steamed shumai. The shumai was as good as I remember, the cocktail not as much. Then we got a plate of sushi that was good, particularly the nigiri.
June 26
The Verrill Farm CSA began today but I’m going out of town tomorrow so I wanted to use up as much as I could in one night. I made a simple salad with red onions and a balsamic-parmesan dressing. Then I used a bunch of their basil and some garlic scapes to make founder in a lemon-basil sauce with sauteed garlic scapes. Finally I reverse seared a filet of beef and served it over swiss chard and onions. I got the beef from Concord Market and it was spectacular.
June 27
Vacation was off to a rocky start. Our flight was delayed two hours, and to make matters worse it started to thunder as soon as we got to Hudson’s so we couldn’t even eat there. We decided to go to Giuseppi’s instead which was delicious as always, even if we did eat to much. We got their wings again which were still very good. Then we tried The Over/Under Double Pepperoni Pie, amazing. But way too much food.
June 28
We spent the day at the pool which was lovely. For lunch we had our favorite pool cocktail, Miami Vice which is piña colada mixed with strawberry daiquiri, and fish tacos.
For dinner we went to Alfred’s. In addition to making great food, they pour a generous cocktail, particularly the B&B I ended the meal with. To eat, we split a scallops Florentine and then I had an off menu special, the Schweinhaxen, a slow roasted pork shank that came with spaetzle and cabbage. That didn’t stop me from eating a good portion of Kelly’s schnitzel. And then for dessert I had apple strudel. It was a huge feast and absolutely wonderful.
June 29
We finally made it to Hudson’s. It is normally the first stop on trip to Hilton Head and I guess it still was, we just didn’t get to eat anything because of the weather and the lines. Well we made it back today and there was no wait because we went between 2:00-3:00. We got peel and eat shrimp and a blackened shrimp po boy. We also tried something new and got Oysters Hudson. It was the first thing we ordered there that we didn’t like. It was bound to happen.
After Hudson’s we went to Hilton Head Distillery. I had a flight of two rums and a gin. I think I had tried the Bulrush Blood Orange at Hudson’s but this was the first time trying it straight. The rum I enjoyed was called Extra Special Dark and made with blackstrap molasses. It was so good that I bought a bottle to bring home.
June 30
Today we had lunch at the Buoy Bar at Omni so we didn’t have to leave the pool. The chicken sandwich was decent but service was so painfully slow that several other people sitting around us were complaining loudly.
For dinner we tried Skull Creek Dockside. We have seen this place for years and never tried it. We thought it would be a competitor to Hudson’s but it wasn’t even close. We started with the shrimp nachos which were covered in something similar to ball park nacho cheese with clumps of diced shrimp. Kelly really didn’t like it and even I left some behind. We followed that up with bbq, a mixed plate of ribs, pork, and chicken. That was actually pretty good and the view was nice, but the ambiance was severely lacking. We won’t go back there, but we might try their sister restaurant next door, Skull Creek Boathouse.
Best of the month
The best meal I cooked was when Marino cam over and I made Mexican, but it seems like every month whatever Mexican I cook is my favorite. Coming close to that was my first farm share meal. The filet was perfect and the sauce on the flounder was wonderful too.
I did have some good meals dining out. The three best around town were Mario’s which I always love, shrimp and bok choy at Beijing, and our chowder taste test between Brown and Markey’s. Beijing was the best food, but I had the most fun doing the chowder quest. At Hilton Head, Giuseppi’s, Alfred’s, and Hudson’s were all great, but this year I’m picking Alfred’s as the best meal of the three.
Overall my three best dishes were:
Mexican Dinner at home
Peel and Eat Shrimp at Hudson’s
Schweinhaxen at Alfred’s
hungrytommy links:
New London Style Pizza
Ken’s NY Deli
The Colonial Inn – chowder quest (new)
80 Thoreau
Karma
carnitas – recipe
chipotle sweet potatoes – recipe
Cimarron – the rest of the bar (new)
DeNo’s Pizza & Subs
Brown’s Lobster Pound – chowder quest (new)
Brown’s Lobster Pound – travel bite
Markey’s Lobster Pool – chowder quest (new)
Murcia al Vino – cheese (new)
Delice des Deux-Sevres – cheese (new)
Mario’s
Giuseppi’s – travel bite (new)
Alfred’s Restaurant – travel bite (new)
E.S.D. Rum – the rest of the bar (new)
Hudson’s Seafood – travel bite (new)
Concord Culinary Lyceum 
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