Monthly Archives: August 2009

Paradise Bar and Grill, Stamford, CT

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The kids and I took our new au pair to lunch even though she didn’t want to eat at all. We got chowder and it was pretty tasty.

It was thick enough and had a more than acceptable amount of very fresh and tasty clams.

ChowderBoy gave it a big thumbs up and then had a fit that we didn’t bring any for ChowderDad.

ChowderGirl started waxing poetic about chowders we have loved.

Thickness: 6
Quantity of Clams: 8
Quality of Clams: 8
Buttery: 2
Temperature: 3
Seasonings: 5
Potato: 4
Freshness: 9

45/80 = F

(ack! – maybe I should call it D-)

Flanders Fish Market – Niantic

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Friday night, we stopped at Flanders Fish Market for dinner on the way to the Cape. That may well be the friendliest restaurant I’ve ever been in – everyone was just so darned sweet, I thought I was no longer in the Northeast.

Iit was just such a nice sweet place. And the rest of the food was great. And the kids stuff came in a boat!

The problem was. The chowder was not great. Maybe Connecticut will never get it right. Maybe I am so cranky and suspicious of thin chowder that they will never please me enough. Once I get the map rolling and add the grades to it, we will see a pattern.

Tweet: “flanders fish market in Niantic…chowder is tasty but very thin. ChowderDad tried to doctor it with a pat of butter but it didn’t help”

Both ChowderKids were cranky and just wanted to get to the Cape. So their reviews were all kinds of negative and sad and whiny too.

LESSON LEARNED: Flanders Fish Market is a PERFECT place to stop for dinner on the way to the Cape from lower CT and the tri-state area. Friendly staff, good food, but skip the chowder.

Who in Their Right Mind Would Eat Chowder at Lake Compounce?

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In addition to free Mountain Dew which you can consume in gallon size containers or even feed to your 6 month old in a bottle, Lake Compounce has chowder.

Not just chowder but bread bowl chowder.

So. It had potatoes in it. A lot of them. And it was thin. Until the walls of the bowl fell into it and then thickened it up with bread. Not surprisingly, the clams did not seem fresh or plentiful.

The fact that we paid $10 for a bread bowl of moderately okay chowder and sacrificed a half hour in the water park made us once again reconsider the “must consume chowder if it is available” concept.

Bourne Braves Baseball Game Chowder

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Ballgame chowder...

Cheap, so that is nice. And the ballgame was free. So for $5 we got chowder and a ballgame.

But the chowder left much to be desired. The kids were starving so we got two cups. And even STARVING after a long day of swimming and running around, they still took one taste and walked away. I was starving so I ate some. But then took this picture and threw it out too.

Shamefully boring.

Oh, and Bourne lost.

Quahog Republic, Bourne MA

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Here’s the tweet stream from the day we discovered that we love Mashnee Island Grill’s chowder.

# quahog republic test. shhhhhh.
# live. give. relax.
# chowder girl is wary of “smoked bacon” in the chowder.
# just told the waitress about our love of chowder.
# holy bacon and butter. kids are a bit thrown by it but I am a big big fan. wow.
# chowderboy is salting the heck out of it. but is starting to warm up to it.
# this chowder has a lot of salt. a lot of bacon. and the potatoes are freaking PERFECT
# huge clams perfectly cooked bacon like mad…i may have a chowder crush.
# chowderboy is in love and i cannot disagree.
# chowder boy looooooooved it.

We were dubious. We were concerned. We are, after all, New Englanders and very hesitant to approve of anything new, nevermind a restaurant that has yet another new name. But it was just spectacular.


Can’t wait to introduce it to ChowderDad.