I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

seafood

Monday Munchies: Floramo’s Restaurant- Chelsea, MA

As part of my Monday Munchies series, I will feature a different eatery for a review on the third Monday of every month. Hope you enjoy!

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Price and I have only had a few ‘Date Nights’ since Autumn was born. I think 4, maybe 5 of them. And 2 of them were on the cruise that we took in January. And since then we have been talking about how we needed to get a babysitter so that we could have a Date Night soon.

As it was our first time using our sweet babysitter at night so we wanted to pick a place that was close by. We weighed our options and decided to go to Floramo’s restaurant, which is about a 3-4 minute drive from our house. We’ve lived in Chelsea for about 3 years now so we were excited to try a local place.

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When we arrived shortly after 7pm we were told it would be able a 25-30 minute wait. We took our pager to a bench off the lobby to wait while discussing upcoming wedding stuff. But before we knew it a few minutes had passed and our pager began to go off. I’m glad our wait was much faster than originally predicted.

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We debated getting an appetizer but once we checked out the Appetizers menu we decided we had try the Buffalo Fried Calamari ($9.95). We both really like traditional calamari that is fried and served with marinara sauce. Or the Rhode Island Style that has spicy cherry peppers.

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But this was different as the crispy fried calamari was tossed in Buffalo wing sauce and blue cheese dressing was for the dipping sauce. It all worked together perfectly. A cool mashup between calamari and buffalo wings.

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As Floramo’s is known for their steak tips and delicious meats, Price decided to order the Mixed Grill ($16.25) for his entree. It included Sausage, a Steak Tip, a Turkey Tip, Chicken a Tip, 1/4 Rack of Ribs. It was a good introduction to the selection of meats that they serve. All of their barbecue is meat that is cooked to your desired level of done-ness and marinated in Floramo’s secret barbecue sauce recipe.

Price really enjoyed everything on the mixed grill. He was really impressed by the amount of food served, although he wished there was more steak tips as the piece was really good. The piece of sausage was really big and grilled nicely. The slogan for Floramo’s is “Where the meat falls off the bone!”and it really is true as the meat on the ribs was fall off the bone tender.

As well, Price decided to get a baked potato, between his choice of fries, rice, mashed potato, baked potato, or pasta. It was served with butter and sour cream on the side.

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I had originally thought I’d order steak tips, but once Price ordered a meaty dish I decided to check out their selection fish entrees. I ordered the Haddock Italiano ($13.95), which was lightly battered and sautéed haddock served over pasta with onions, diced tomato, spinach and crushed hot peppers in a wine based sauce. It was fantastic! I picked angel hair pasta and I think it worked well with the sauce. The 2 large pieces of fish were tender and very flaky. The sauce was spicy from all the crushed hot peppers in the sauce. It all just worked together really well.

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Both of our dinners came with a simple salad. There were a handful of dressing to choose from, like ranch, blue cheese, Italian, but we opted just for oil and vinegar.

Even though both of us only had half of our entrees we were stuffed. I would have loved to have hung around and ordered dessert but we were just too full.

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As the entrees were so large (for us) we enjoyed the leftovers the next day, making our dinner a great deal.

I’m so glad that we finally had a chance to make it to Floramo’s Restaurant. I’m already thinking about the next time we can go so I can have some of my own steak tips!

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Floramo’s Restaurant

213 Everett Avenue

Chelsea MA, 02150

617-889-1330

Monday- Wednesday: 11-9pm

Thursday – Saturday: 11-10pm

Sunday: Closed

Monday Munchies: Bob’s Clam Hut- Kittery, ME

As part of my Monday Munchies series, I will feature a different eatery for a review on the first and third Monday of every month. Hope you enjoy!

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Our yearly trip to ‘gma’s house at Maine’ ends with a meal Bob’s Clam Hut in Kittery, Maine. And not ones to break tradition, we stopped off there today for our late lunch/early dinner.

The menu is large but easy to navigate. Basically, just about everything is fried, but everything is fresh. Don’t let the price’s intimidate you as they are really large portions. The dinner we get always end up being 2 meals. I don’t think it would hurt to share or to order 1 less meal if you are a large party.

Besides the great food one of the things I really love about Bob’s is it’s green initiative. They serve their food and drinks in green containers and even collect rain water for their landscaping. Please just sort your trash in the correct containers for their composting, trash, and recycling!

 

A ‘Bob & Betty’ dinner with butterflied shrimp and chicken fingers. Several pieces of chicken fingers and several pieces of butterflied shrimp accompany a large serving of fries, cole slaw, and a roll.

A ‘Bob & Betty’ with scallops and clam strips. I often go to a lobster roll but after eating more than my fill of delicious lobster this long weekend I decided to go with a dinner of scallops of clams strips. I do enjoy whole belly clams but I figured Price would be more likely to try the clam strips… ‘they taste like calamari, I swear’. The scallops are cut in half and are perfect size for dipping into a container of cocktail sauce or tartar sauce. Yum!

 

Whether you are spending your day shopping at the outlets in Kittery or just passing through Maine on 95, you have to stop by Bob’s Clam Hut for a great New England experience.

Bob’s Clam Hut

315 US Route 1

Kittery, Maine 03904

 207-439-4233

Garlic Lemon Shrimp

When Price and I first met ages ago he did not like seafood. At all. Well, with the exception of the fried fish dinner from Doug’s Fish Fry from back home. And I think that was only because they have the best cole slaw there. Over the years he has been more adventitious and has expanded his pallet so every now and then we had seafood for dinner.  Shrimp was on sale one day so whipped up this super simple, flavorful dinner for us on a whim.

 

 

This was so easy to prepare. The prep time was so fast as most of the work was done for me has the shrimp had been de-veined and de-shelled. I only needed to remove the tails before tossing together the rest of the mixture. This could be served with rice or pasta but I decided to not dirty another pot and just enjoy it with french bread. Normally, I would drizzle the bread with extra virgin olive oil but the rest of the dish was so indulgent with butter, oil, and wine so I keep it basic. Besides, the bread would just be dipped into the ‘broth’ anyway. This is very garlicky so this is not a first date kind of meal, enjoy it with someone you love and some wine!

 

Garlic Lemon Shrimp

Serves 2 as an entree, 4 as an appetizer

Ingredients

  •  1 pound shrimp, medium sized (31-35)
  • 4-6 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into small pieces
  • 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 cup white wine
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
  • 1 1/2 large lemons
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 loaf of french bread

Process

  1. Preheat oven to 425. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.
  2. Rinse and remove the shell and tails from the shrimp.
  3. In a bowl, mix together the shrimp, garlic, butter, olive oil, wine, oregano, red pepper flake, and the juice of 1 lemon. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  4. Lay out the shrimp mixture on half of the lined baking sheet. Cut the remaining 1/2 lemon into thin slices and lay onto the shrimp.
  5. Slice the french bread into 1/2 thick pieces and lay out on the other half of the baking sheet.
  6. Bake for 12-15 minutes, it is done when the shrimp have all turned pink.
  7. First remove the toasted bread, then carefully pick up the aluminium foil to transfer the shrimp and it’s cooking liquid to a serving dish.

A Simple Mussels Dinner

I feel that a plate a steaming hot mussels that have been cooked with wine, butter, garlic, maybe even some onions, makes for a great appetizer to share with friends. Or to enjoy for dinner all by yourself. This is a great meal to make because it comes together so easily. All the while you are sipping some white wine. A splash for the mussels, a sip for yourself. Remember that.

I always just strolled into my local grocery store and picked up a bag of mussels to bring back home. But when I was in Maine over the summer we did things a little bit differently. We actually went out to pluck mussels right out of the waters around an island at low tide.

I had no idea how easy it would be. Just a few  fun steps and we were then feasting on fresh food. It was so satisfying to know that the mussels were fresh from the waters, no more than 30 minutes out of the water from when they were in the pot. Plus I think all our ‘hard’ work made them taste better.

1- Go to a place where you can get some fresh mussels. In this case E took us to a spot she calls The Hub off off Deer Isle, ME.

2- Meet a skiddish green crab along the way.

3- Spot some mussels. Target acquired. We came across a lot of mussels under the seaweed. Take a peek and maybe you will find a lot that way.

4- Pluck the mussels off their rocks. Pick a bit more than you think you will eat. Trust me.

5- Throughly clean the mussels. E removed some of the barnacles off as well prior to cooking them.

6) Enjoy with some wine, melted butter, and bread. We also had some corn that I removed from the ears and sauteed.

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Whether you get the mussels fresh from the waters yourself or you go to a grocery store, you should make mussels any time you can. A few ingredients and you have a great dinner that works for any time of year.

Steamed Mussels

Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds of mussels, cleaned and rinsed
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup white wine
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1 small white onion, sliced (optional)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the bread
  • 1/2 stick of butter
  • 1 loaf of bread
  • paprika
  • salt and pepper

Process

  1. Starting with the bread, half the loaf lengthwise. Pour olive oil over the bread, sprinkle with paprika. Lightly toast in a 225 oven.
  2. In a large pot, combine the water, wine, 2 cloves of garlic, onion, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Upon bringing to a light boil, add the mussels to the pot. Cover and cook for 6-8 minutes, or until the mussels have opened.
  3. While the mussels are cooking, in a separate small saucepan, add the garlic and butter. Melt on low.
  4. Serve the mussels with the toasted bread, seasoned melted butter, and a cup of the cooking liquid from the mussels. Enjoy with a big glass of white wine.
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