4th on The Vineyard

I was lucky enough to have been invited to spend 4th of July week down on Martha's Vineyard with Angie and her parents. They bought a timeshare like 30 years ago for this week every year that alternates on a yearly basis between the Vineyard and Nantucket. This year it was the Vineyard, and so I went.

I headed down early Wednesday morning after finishing up my orientational duties for the prior weekend. (I am off this coming weekend, so I have a nice little break in my summer at the moment.) Angie picked me up from the ferry and after dropping my stuff off at the place in Vineyard Haven we headed for Katama Beach. After getting sufficiently exposed to hazardous ultraviolet rays from Sol we headed home to wash up before dinner at this place. The menu was great. We had the mussels and crabcakes to start for the table. I had what was easily the best Caesar salad of my entire life. I feel like calling it a Caesar salad almost does it an injustice in a way for some reason. It was incredible. I waffled on my main course selection and selected the strip steak (which i see now is not on the sample menu). I asked for medium rare, but it was closer to medium well, hard to believe I know. The jus was delicious though and the steak, besides its overcookedness for my tastes, was great. One thing I didn't like is that this is one of those BYOB places because half of the island is dry so they have to open the shit for you and then charge you a corkage fee...which is incredibly lame. I mean, if you are enough of a dumbshit to open a restaurant in a dry town that's what you get...don't go charging me for your assholity.

The next day we hit up Chappaquiddick island for the beach. I got to see firsthand where Ted Kennedy killed Mary Jo Kopechne almost forty years ago. The beach itself was awesome though, the water was beautiful and there was almost no one there. One sweet thing about the beaches we went to all over the island is that there is no charge to park anywhere...seriously refreshing for a place where everything is so expensive. For dinner Thursday night, Angie and I went to Offshore Ale Co in Oak Bluffs. I had a couple of pints of the Hop Goddess which was absolutely delicious. Nice high grav/high IBU IPA with a very smooth citrusy bitterness and plenty of malt character. I could have drank those all night long. We split the fired ravioli appetizer which was awesome and I had my first ever lobster roll as an entree...tons of lobster, not too much mayo, well seasoned, nice grilled bun. I had been seriously jonesing for lobster and this was the fix I needed (or so I thought at the time).

The next morning I was awoken by Angie's phone ringing. Her mom was out walking at just the time that this was going on. We went out and watched the whole thing go down. Oddly enough, both Angie and I as well as her parents had considered going to this place for dinner the previous evening. here's what it looked like when all was said and done. Very sad. More info here.

The rest of the actual 4th of July was actually pleasantly uneventful. We hit the beach, despite it being overcast and had dinner at the hotel. 2 pound steamers, pan fried fingerling potatoes, and a fresh pea, spinach, pesto salad that was phenomenal. Angie's mom really knows how to toss a salad. All in all a good time away from the city to get to the beach, relax and eat good food.

&Ry