Weekend Cooking- Cape Cod Restaurants

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The Labor Day holiday found us traveling to Cape Cod for summer's last hurrah. Some of us golfed during the day, while others (me) sat on the beach under the warm sun reading a fantastic book (Matthew Thomas' We Are Not Ourselves- review to come).

At night, the whole crew- my husband and I, my husband's parents and aunt, and our sons and son's girlfriend- went out to sample the local restaurants. The first night we ended up at The Skipper Restaurant, which sits across the street from the water. The highlights:

• We started with Award-Winning Clam Chowder, which was very tasty. A platter of baked potato skins followed, with bacon, cheese and tomatoes on top. The tomatoes gave it a bit of a different and enjoyable flavor.
• The fish and chips were full of flavor, and the fries were hot and crispy on the outside, and fluffy on the inside.
• We returned for lunch the next day and sat upstairs on the deck overlooking the water. I had the Lobster Roll, which was terrific. The roll was filled with delicious, tender lobster and they had one of our favorite Chardonnays- Sonoma Cuterer- by the glass.

  

  The Skipper Mobile

The next night, my mother-in-law suggested we got to The Yarmouth House, a place she remembered visiting years ago. It is a very old-school, family-owned restaurant, which seemed filled with local folks, always a good sign. They have a water wheel in the front of the dining room, and strings of little white lights dot the outer dining room, which made for such a pretty ambiance. The highlights:

• Prime Rib- which I haven't had in forever, and theirs was cooked perfectly, served with a tasty baked potato
• The mussels in a garlic and white wine sauce and the Crescent City Salmon, which was blackened with a Cajun seasoning
• I ordered a YH Cosmo, which was so big it had a half a lime as its garnish. It was yummy.

The Yarmouth House website is here.

My YH Cosmo was huge!

I saw on my Facebook page that someone I know was also in Cape Cod, and she posted pictures from Captain Parker's Pub, a restaurant that one of my husband's golf partners also recommended. There was a bit of a wait, but we enjoyed drinks waiting in the bar and then had a wonderful dinner. The highlights:

• They also have Award-Winning Clam Chowder (do you sense a theme yet?), and I have to agree with them. The chowder was fantastic, and I only wish we could have taken some home with us.
• Someone ordered the Lobster Dinner and it looked incredible. 

Captain Parker's Pub is http://www.captainparkers.com/

Captain Parker's Chowder

Captain Parker's Lobster Dinner

The wall above the bar at Captain Parker's

For lunch the next day, we headed into Hyannis to Pizza Barbone, a place my sister-in-law recommended. The highlights:

• The Crushed Potato Pizza, with garlic cream, crushed creamer potato, bacon, scallion and mozzarella. It tasted like a baked potato and it was delicious.
• The Meatball Pizza and the Sweet Sausage pizzas were also pronounced good, as was the mussels appetizer.

The link to Pizza Barbone is here.

Crushed Potato Pizza

We headed back to Hyannis and the Black Cat Tavern, which sits right on the harbor. Some highlights:

• More Award-Winning Clam Chowder
• Award-Winning Giant Lobster Roll, which while not exactly giant, was the best lobster roll I had
• We sat next to the piano player, and that was fun trying to guess the song!

The link to the Black Cat Tavern is here.

I had read about the Keltic Kitchen, a wonderful breakfast place that always has a long wait, but boy was it worth it. We all said it was the Best.Breakfast.Ever. The highlights:

• The Rasher Benny- eggs benedict over rashers (Irish bacon) on an English muffin, with breakfast potatoes
• Potato Pancakes
• Famous Corned Beef Hash- with peppers and onions
• Breakfast Quesadilla- was a special that day, with chicken, peppers, onions and salsa.
• They also have a Keltic Cottage, where you can buy souvenirs and Irish food to take home.

The Keltic Kitchen website is here.

The Keltic Kitchen

And no trip to Cape Cod is complete without a visit to the Sundae School for their world-famous Ice Cream Sundaes. It was voted one of the 31 best ice cream shops in the United States by Food and Wine Magazine, and it is so crowded they have people directing you where to park just like at the State Fair. The Sundae School website is here.

The Sundae School

The sun, beach and wonderful food made for a memorable weekend. I hope you all were able to relax on the last unofficial weekend of summer.