Nantucket Trip Report

Old Jul 6th, 2006, 02:36 PM
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Nantucket Trip Report

Short break: 5 nights in Nantucket: just thought I’d share a few updates on restaurants/etc for anyone going anytime soon! Didn’t do anything to exciting except eat some fabulous food and bring home a few extra pounds to walk off !

Arrival Day: get settled, great dinner at Cioppino’s on Broad Street sitting in the garden, a restaurant that never disappoints us - beginning with the mandatory Nantucket homemade 888 vodka - followed by many shared hors d’oeuvres, salads (even the old standby lettuce, blue cheese, bacon wedge tastes better in the garden), friends enjoyed filet, pasta special of the night, seafood followed by desserts and after dinner drinks.

Day One: Had reserved a jeep and headed out to give our friends an overview of the island - spent the day driving around the island, visiting all the beaches and areas from one end to the other- enjoying stopping at every beach, coastal trail, etc and the beautiful side roads, gardens, stopping at Madaket at the West End Restaurant and Bar (for lunch, the best burgers ever we all agree) and if you can get there for sunset and sit upstairs even better - fabulous views. - We head back in time to relax before dinner at DeMarco Restaurant and a night time stroll through the streets while eating our ice cream cones. The meal was very good but not earth shattering this time, and service was a bit spotty, our waitress was accomodating but only a few days into her job. So far, Cioppino’s wins for dinner.

Day Two: A lazy morning, then take the jeep out to the Summer House in Siasconset for lunch on the patio at the beach - and pizza, salads, burgers and drinks enjoyed by all. A wonderful spot to sit and take a break with great ocean breezes coming through on an otherwise extremely hot day. While it was all lovely, we were still dreaming about those West End burgers....

Eventually make our way back to town, stopping along the way, exploring side streets, again to see gorgeous flowers in bloom and always commenting on the cute cottage names - return the jeep and relax a bit before our best dinner yet at Le Lanquedoc - incredible salads, wine, amazing lobster special, filet mignons for the carnivores - and the most mouth watering buttercrunch/almond/ice cream dessert. We ate inside in one of the upstairs cozy dim lit romantic rooms. Wins best dinner, moves Cioppino’s to second place, but it’s a close call b/c we loved the garden in the latter.

Day Three: A bit overcast, even a slight drizzle here and there (and foggy, as it often is one the water) although it cleared by early afternoon - so while the guys relaxed, walk the docks, were generally lazy, we shopped the stores along the docks/wharfs, Main street and all the side streets - only grabbing a quick to go salad for lunch at the gourmet kitchen shop - and finished browsing around 5, time to relax and have yet another great dinner at Slip 14 on the wharf, capped by an amazing chocolate dessert. Unfortunately the fog had rolled in enough that they cancelled the fireworks, so we strolled to work off dinner.

I feel the shopping, if that interests you, has changed over the past few years, ie; prices - (not that Nantucket would ever be a shopping destination) there are still a few tried and true stores for some affordable items and t shirts, etc but so many are now extremely ‘upscale’ in the price category - not that it isn’t stuff you see elsewhere, but it doesn’t make for a fun day of island shopping for me anyway- but likely that is for two reasons - the stores seem to be catering to the younger set (this gal is over 50) in their styles and sizes (altho i’m an 8, most of the items were 0, 2, 4, 6’s -eeks - and lots of jeans for over $400 and sweaters for over $500 and raincoats for $1,000 and my sister in law from NYC and I from Boston/Cape we were just in sticker shock compared to those places we know for ‘special deals’ - the clothing/bags/etc something you see in upscale boutiques and malls, and can get elsewhere or on sale or never even think of buying depending on your pocketbook - but not what I prefer for island shopping - harder to find cute, unusual, islandy things at reasonable prices, in our opinions anyway and a lot of what we saw can be had elsewhere for less of course (

Day Four: we take off after breakfast, we had tried one morning to get our favorite pancakes at Black Eyed Susans but it wasn’t to be, the line was far too long on the 4th of July, so we chatted with friends for the supposed 30 minute wait and ended up having our usual, but favorite, croissants with cream cheese, bacon and tomato at Provisions on the wharf and headed home. All in all, great weather, sunny days and wonderful meals. Wish we could have spent more time on the beach, but one of our group was in a walking cast so that wasn’t in the cards for this trip, - so while the rest of us got short walks on a few beaches, leavings one sitting by the car waiting wasn’t fair, so never got my full lazy beach day or two, but plenty of sunny beach days left for back at home!

Didn't have the kids with us (gone and on their own) but plenty of memories of summer visits when we would spend days with them at beaches or bike riding or going out to the point to fly kites.....I'm going to pull out my old albums now !!
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Old Jul 6th, 2006, 04:31 PM
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Thanks for the trip report! Going to Nantucket in September - will bookmark for restaurant references, etc.
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Old Jul 6th, 2006, 04:56 PM
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Good report. I'm heading up that way next week. Was it warm or will I need a sweater??
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Old Jul 6th, 2006, 05:16 PM
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Good report of a leisurely time, escargot! Glad you got to get away, and sorry you and I couldn't get together in Boston the week before.

Next time...
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Old Jul 6th, 2006, 08:49 PM
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schmerl: it was magnificently warm - but no matter when I am in Nantucket part of the weather seems consistent in that it is usually a bit foggy in the early morning (but we are also at the boat basin so we may get more of that there) -and sometimes cool but it usually breaks and clears by late morning - but at night I most always need a light sweater or jean or cotton jacket or some type of shawl - as it gets cool on the island at night - and just in case I always bring a small pocket size umbrella in case drizzle moves in - hopefully you will have wonderful sunny weather as we did.

Smalti I too am sorry we couldn't match up but at least got to chat on the phone ! Believe me, after taking care of my nieces 2 year old for those 5 days while she was in the hospital having baby number 2 I needed a bit of a rest.....as delightful as he is, keeping up with a 2 yr old at over 50 is something I am not used to and forget what it was like when mine were that age !!
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Old Jul 7th, 2006, 03:52 AM
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This is a really good trip report. I live in Nantucket, and all the information here -- weather, restaurants, and shopping -- is accurate. There are many, many other choices of activities and restuarants that you could make, but these were good ones.

Slip 14 is new, replacing a number of undistinguished and occasionally bad restaurants formerly in the same location. We had a nice lunch there the other day and we had wondered about it for dinner. Now we will try it for dinner. We had a nice dinner last night at the moderately priced Hen House, which is diner-casual during the day but has soft jazz on the sound system in the evening and well-priced, well cooked items on the evening menu. It is near the Stop and Shop supermarket, so a bus or cab ride from downtown.



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Old Jul 7th, 2006, 07:36 AM
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Ackislander: I still miss when Slip41 was a restaurant that served breakfast about 20 years ago when my kids were babies - and I can't for the life of me remember if it just had great muffins called "morning glory muffins" or if that was also actually the name of the place ! - The dinner was good, unfortunately I can't eat seafood so I had a cobb salad which was listed as a 'super' one and really was an ordinary one, but it was good - everyone with us (3 others) and the table of people next to us who we knew (7) all raved about their seafood and that chocolate dessert !

We'll have to try Hen House next trip - we love jazz.
thanks for the tip.
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Old Jul 7th, 2006, 10:02 AM
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Escargot, it _was_ the Morning Glory Cafe, and nothing else in that location has been as good! Do you remember when The Dory or Two Steps Up were where Black Eyed Susan's is now? Funny, they both catered mostly to locals, whereas Black Eyed Susan's is mostly tourists (good food, but mostly tourists).

I am glad to hear about the West Ender from you as it has also changed hands. That is why it is so hard to give restaurant recommendations here: ownership is always changing, and what is great this year may not be next and vice-versa.
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Old Jul 9th, 2006, 05:58 PM
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Ackislander: well you have been there awhile - and you might be able to help my family remember the name of something else : as far as breakfasts, we usually come by boat (non boating season we used to , years ago, stay at the India House when Charles ran it - did you know that place?) - anyway, being on the boat with younger kids we tended to eat breakfast on board until they got a bit older -but when they were old enough they loved to walk to some donut place, I think in the direction from the Boat Basin toward Jette's Beach - with fresh donuts in the morning - do you remember this place?

As far as West End: we thought the burgers were beyond delicious - a couple from Boston and a couple from NYC and we talked about them for days - one person also had a lobster roll which they thought was good lobster, but would have liked more 'pizazz" to it - I suppose you could argue this both ways - taste the lobster -or also liking the taste of mayo/celery/seasonings - probably personal opinion - he said the lobster itself was good but the burger was better !!
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Old Jul 9th, 2006, 06:35 PM
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2 thoughts:
Hey, thanks for the great report! Cheered me up- (or at least it was a satisfactory distraction) Sooo hot (and mundane) here

Shopping: Eeeek! And I thought Cannon Beach, OR, was getting "upscale"
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Old Jul 26th, 2006, 10:45 PM
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Hi, former Nantucketer (washashore) now living in Europe. The Donut Place was the Downyflake. First they were on South Water Street, where Fog Island is now until there was an explosion one morning that blew the place up. Then they moved to the little place at Children's Beach and now they are out near Stop and Shop, still selling those great donuts and the best scallop rolls ever! Plus stupendous pancakes - forget standing in line at Black-Eyed Susan's....
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Old Jul 27th, 2006, 01:23 PM
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that's it bopeep!! the downyflake !!! great memories!!! thanks for giving the name!
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Old Jul 27th, 2006, 01:24 PM
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so sorry, beaupeep - for incorrect spelling of your name, much better with the 'beau'
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Old Jul 27th, 2006, 01:34 PM
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escargot, i have the recipe for those morning glory muffins if you want me to post it. it was in some cookbook about new american cooking and the author had traveled all over the country collecting great recipes. i copied down the muffins recipe since her description of them was so good. i recall she mentioned the person who created the recipe was trying to find a way to create a great muffin that would still be great a few days later for boat people.
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Old Jul 27th, 2006, 03:59 PM
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Oh yes PLEASE PLEASE share the recipe - can't believe you have it !!! I would love to have it ! We loved having them in the morning when we stayed at the boat basin and also took some as we left and they were still great days later - so I guess I am one of those 'boat people' they planned them for !!

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Old Jul 27th, 2006, 04:03 PM
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here you go...

i haven't made them yet, but i've been meaning to. let me know if they are what you remember.


Morning Glory Muffins

Yield: 12-15 muffins

2 ¼ cup all purpose flour
1 T ground cinnamon
2 t baking soda
½ t salt
1 ¼ cups sugar
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut, loosely packed
½ cup raisins
2 cups grated carrots (3-4 large), loosely packed
1 apple, shredded
1 cup canned crushed pineapple, drained
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts
3 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 t vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line it with paper cups

2. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar. Add the coconut, raisins, carrots, apple, pineapple, and chopped nuts and mix well.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the vegetable oil and the vanilla, then pour into the bowl with the other ingredients. Stir well.

4. Fill each muffin cup to the brim. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins in the pan for 10 min and turn out onto a rack to finish cooling. Eat immediately—or, better yet, wait 24 hours.
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Old Jul 27th, 2006, 06:24 PM
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THANK YOU thank you, thank you !! I am going to try them as soon as possible and I'll let you know, but from the recipe ingredients, that's the one !!
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Old Jun 2nd, 2007, 02:45 PM
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