Thursday, August 7, 2014

Not Quite Just Right


Readers will remember that I have a category for places that is “just right”, meaning that everything is in harmony for what the restaurant is meant to be.  St. James Pub was always a leader in that department, just the right combination of service (you ready, dear?), daily white board specials, country music channel on the TV, Keno screen over the bar populated with players sipping whiskey regardless of the hour, a pool table in a raised area in back, just what you want for a “pub”.  Nothing forced, just what it was for years.

So it was in that vein that I finally succumbed to the urging of a friend (and by the way, all these “friends” are NOT the same person, believe it or not, I do have more than one..) to go have lunch at Captain Pat's Seafood.  He had not been there before either, but always wanted to see what it was like so today we decided today was the day, and we drove down into “the Park”, 

Locals will know that Captain Pat's is nestled between Ledo’s (we don’t cut corners) Pizza  and Sign of the Whale, two other institutions that have been in Lexington Park as long as I can remember.  None of those are particularly welcoming, although Ledo’s is a relatively popular place for lunch, and Sign does a pretty brisk business after dark.   Anyway, Captain Pat's currently advertises itself thusly:




Well, that’s cute.  Not sure that’s what I want to see going into a restaurant.  Anyway, the place does kind of lapse into the Just Right feeling for a roadside urban seafood place, with Formica topped  tables, plastic “Tiffany” lamps, molded plastic benches for booths, and tired nautical displays in the corners



The tables have just about the “right” stuff, malt vinegar, squeeze bottles (health department approved I’m sure) of tartar sauce, ketchup, and some kind of cocktail sauce, roll of paper towels.  Check, check, and check.


Only missing item might be a red plastic basket full of cellophane wrapped saltines.  See that little yellow shaker hiding behind my Sam Adams?



Speaking of Sam, we had the only two bottled beers that were NOT bud, bud light, coors or coors light.  Corona?  “we don’t have limes, sir”

So we extracted that laminated menu card



Which contained all the stuff you would expect to see, one side lunch, other side dinner, baskets, sandwiches, combo plates, typical seafood place fare.  My friend opted for the haddock basket, and I took a (today's) special fried shrimp basket for $7.99, normally “more".

The food appeared in the requisite red basket with waxed paper, the shrimp and haddock (sandwich).


(shrimps)
(haddock)

I would have to say that the shrimp were about what you hoped you wouldn't get, that kind of grainy coating with, I don’t know, not quite iodine taste, not sweet shrimp.  The report on the haddock was that it tasted like it “had been around for a while”, or at least in the freezer for a while.  Fries were exactly what you would expect as you can see from the pictures.

It should be noted that at a table across from us, there was a couple of ladies who were manfully (not a good analogy, but you get the drift) tackling a beer tray of steamed crabs.  At it when we got there, still picking when we left.  Good for them.

After I got home, I sent a note to another friend who is pretty knowledgeable on local history asking about the “history” of Captain Pats.  He said that the building now occupied by the good captain (wonder if there really is a “Pat”) used to be a Taco John’s, and the little cluster that currently houses Sign of the... and a Tattoo parlor used to be the Cedar Point Shopping Center.  There is a little concrete building between Pats/Johns and Whale, and I am told (by history friend) that it had a checkered past, and maybe was associated with the Aud’s, a legendary name in the history of “the Park”

Anyway, it was a fun luncheon adventure.  Captain Pat’s kind of begs comparison to Courtney’s, but I would have to say if you want fresh seafood in a proper setting, make the drive down to Courtney’s.  There, it is indeed, Just Right. and you don’t need to be overly concerned about

DFD



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