Out and about Cape Cod

This year round restaurant doesn’t have a water view, is somewhat hard to find and its free parking lot (for diners only) is even harder to find.  So what brings be back to Napi’s Restaurant again and again?   One dish….Thai Chicken and Shrimp.

Once when I was at Napi’s, they had a special of Roast Duckling with raspberry sauce.  This dish was to die for but they haven’t had it again (to my knowledge).  Their daily duckling entree comes with a plumb sauce which can’t compare to the raspberry.

Napi’s has quite a few items on their menu but once I discovered the Thai Chicken and Shrimp I order it again and again.  Once I decided to try something else and was disappointed.  The dinner was fine but with every bite, I knew what I was missing.

 The delicate sauce, the apple chutney, the mixture of flavors…green onion, nuts, chicken, sauce and rice and don’t forget the jumbo shrimp.  These things were king sized!

Three out of four people at our table ordered this dish and everyone ate every single bite.

If you ever find yourself hungry in Provincetown and you are willing to spend the $22.00 that this plate costs, I wholeheartedly recommend that you treat yourself to this wonderfully tasty dish.

When our waitress came to our table and asked if we knew what we wanted to order, I replied: “I knew before I left home.”  The waitress immediately said: “Let me guess..Thai Chicken and Shrimp.”

It seems that most people who come to Napi’s and don’t need to look at a menu, order the same thing.  That has to tell you something.

Last night I had dinner with some good friends at the Noble House on Route 28 in West Harwich. This is the kind of place where the diners sit around a very large cooking surface and the chef prepares your meals right before your eyes with much fanfare and showmanship.

The entertaining, juggling-laced, cooking show was only topped by the excellent food. Our chef prepared shrimp, scallops, chicken, salmon, steak, fried rice, a mound of stir fry vegetables (including an onion volcano!).

Of course this restaurant offered all sorts of sushi (I’m not a fan) and other, a la carte dishes, but it is the hibachi dinners that make this a very special place for Asian food. The entire staff is very friendly and talkative if not a little difficult to understand.

They plan to be open year round and I welcome the occasional break from the usual seafood restaurants in the area.

I highly recommend The Noble House for food served with a flair.
They served me some of the best stir fry I’ve had anywhere.
Maybe I’ll see you there!

The annual Oyster Festival took Wellfleet by storm today.  Despite the drop in temperatures, the weekend after Columbus Day proved to be as busy in Wellfleet as any summer weekend.  This included the all too familiar traffic.  Route 6 was bumper to bumper heading into town all morning long and a similar procession could be seen going in the other direction in the late afternoon.

I was not able to attend due to previous obligations but I was told that the craft and food vendors were very busy and the crowds were enormous.

 Eating a raw oyster is truly an acquired skill.  The purist will swallow them down bare or maybe with a bit of lemon juice squeezed on them.  Personally, my oysters need a seafood cocktail sauce that has a lot of horseradish in it.  I agree that this may mask  the flavor of the oyster a bit, but maybe that is a good thing.

One of the highlights of the festival is the fiercely competitive “Shucking Contest” where you are not only judged on speed but also on the presentation of your final product.  Many an oyster shucker has stuck his own hand with an oyster knife and the gloves worn are, by no means, the thin, latex, surgical kind.   A good oyster shucker works at blinding speed opening shells and cutting muscles…one after the other. 

I usually watch the race with a jar of cocktail sauce by my side.  “Be Prepared” is my motto.

Yesterday I went to the Boston area to visit my daughter.  I started my return trip to Cape Cod around 9:00PM and soon realized that it was a Friday on a Holiday weekend (Columbus Day).  As they sing in the old Christmas Carol:  “Gee, the traffic is terriffic.”

As we were leaving Boston proper, on Rt. 93 south, we passed a billboard for the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.  It was clearly targeting the Boston-based Cape visitor. 

 Cape Cod is well known for having a lot of traffic and congestion during the summer season.  Here it was, October, and schools are back in session and the crowds are gone.  It is truly one of the best times to visit Cape Cod.

To get this message across on a billboard that must be seen and digested  in 4 to 5 seconds as you speed by, the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce opted to show a beautiful beach scene, with brown beach grass in the foreground and a sailboat on the water.  No people could be seen enjoying this beautiful spot.

The message accompanying this scene was simple and to the point:  “Cape Cod; The Coast is Clear.”

Based upon the traffic heading down Route 3 and over the Sagamore Bridge, I would add to that slogan:  “Well, maybe not this weekend.”

All the signs are in place. Recent activity indicate that the annual cranberry harvest is soon. Cape Cod boasts the very first commercial cranberry bog in the U.S. and Harwich would be its home.
Cranberries are harvested two ways depending upon how the berries are to be used. If the berry is going to end up being juice or sauce, then a wet harvesting is done. If the berries are to be sold as dried berries or whole berries, then a dry harvest is done.
In a wet harvest, the entire bog is flooded. A man then drives a machine through the flooded bog that shakes the plants which releases the berries. The free berries then float on the water and are corralled to a device that loads them onto a waiting truck and off they go. It is a colorful sight to see a sea of red as the berries are collected this way.
In a dry harvest, the berries are scooped up from the plant and placed into large cases. Sometimes helicopters are used to life the cases out of the bogs and into to waiting trucks.
All of this effort is done to ensure you the proper condiments on your Thanksgiving table and it is well worth it.

The other day I had the good fortune to visit a beach in Wellfleet along the Cape Cod National Seashore.  The beach was Lecount’s Hollow Beach at Maguire’s Landing.  The sea was showing the effects of a hurricaine hundreds of miles to the east.  These effects consisted of wind gusts and the most majestic waves I have ever seen in my 20+ years of living on Cape Cod.  At high tide, parts of the beach were not safe to walk on.  The waves were so big they crossed the sand and splashed upon the towering sand dunes.  The ocean’s effect upon the sand dunes is similar to the ocean’s effects upon a sand castle…the ocean wins everytime.

Walking north from Lecount’s Hollow, it didn’t take long to come to an area where a house was being threatened by the erosion.  Already the back deck (facing the sea) was gone.  Now the foundation and cesspool walls were exposed.  It will only be a matter of time before the building is no more.  I heard that he homeowners are being required to demolish the building because of the safety threat.  Not only are they losing their home to the sea but they must pay to have it torn down for safety’s sake.

The towering, thundering waves were relentless and even though I did see surfers sitting on boards in the water, they were beyone the breakers.  I did not see one person try to ride these dangerous bad boys.

I was upset with myself that I hadn’t brought my digital camera to record some of these sights but just then it started to rain and I was glad I didn’t have my camera to get soaked.  After a long walk back to our starting point, we climbed back up the dune to our car.  We drove back home to dry off.

While most people who use this rainy day guide are already on Cape Cod or have already made plans on where they will be staying when they arrive  “On Cape,” I must note an observation I made recently when I visited a motel on the lower Cape…West Harwich to be exact.    The motel is  A Beach Breeze Inn and the observation is the fact that in their lobby, they have a “guest book” where they encourage their guests to take the time to write about their stay.  This book is available at all times in the lobby for anyone to read.  I happened to take a look today and was amazed at the extremely positive comments that are there.  People praised everything from the motel’s location, the complimentary homemade muffins and breads available every morning, the wonderful hospitality shown by the innkeepers and the large outdoor pool.

As I read through the pages, the most common comments I noticed reflected upon the graciousness of Pam and Steve.  “Making us feel like one of the family” was written more than once.

While this guest comment book did afford visitors to write any kind of comment, positive or negative, it seems that the happy customers went out of their way to write their thoughts down on paper so their opinions may, hopefully, influence other, potential customers.

 I was sold.