Connecticut 2023, Part 2: Eating on the Coast

As enjoyable as our trip had been before we headed to the Connecticut coast late Sunday morning, I was filled with a burning desire to eat some really good food by that point after a few meals that didn’t live up to my expectations. 

The first thing I had on my mind was a warm lobster roll. I had narrowed our options down to a couple shacks in the scenic little coastal town of Noank and went with Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough. The determining factor was the presence of steamed artichokes on their menu. I don’t eat those, but they may be my wife’s single favorite food. 

This place is the picture of a coastal seafood shack, although it’s quite a large facility, with several different outdoor seating areas. 

The menu was a steamed seafood lover’s dream. It was also quite large, but I knew I was having a hot lobster roll. They offer several size options and I zeroed in on the OMG version, which contains nearly a half-pound of unadorned warm lobster meat on a traditional New England-style bun with melted butter on the side. 

We wanted to sit outside, but a relentless bee took a shine to my soda, forcing us to move to Abbott’s indoor seating area.

With my wife content, I was able to blissfully focus on how good my lobster roll looked as I snapped photos of it. Then – after pouring a little butter on top – it was time to take my first bite.

It was a doozy. 

The meat tasted so fresh – as I’m sure it was – and there was no mayo or lettuce to interfere with my enjoyment of it. 

We enjoyed a little stroll by the water after our meal then got back into the car and headed further down the coast to our next destination – Essex, Connecticut.

Essex has the reputation of being one of the most scenic of Connecticut’s coastal towns, but it’s much smaller and less overrun with tourists than is Mystic – at least that was the case while we were there. 

Our purpose for being in Essex was simply to stroll and browse in the occasional shop – that and hopefully eat some ice cream. 

In our many visits to Connecticut over the years, we had never left the state without at least one ice cream stop. But it was getting late in the trip and we hadn’t had any yet. I knew there was a parlor somewhere in the heart of downtown Essex and we managed to find it without much difficulty. It may be the same shop we visited during our only previous stop in the town years ago.

Sweet P’s flavor list included my New England favorite – Maple Walnut. I went for a scoop of that while my wife opted for Pumpkin Gingersnap. We were both happy with our selections, although the scoops were on the small side. 

Following a walk down to the waterfront, we headed back to the car and our hotel north of New Haven. We wanted to check in and take a little break before going out to dinner.

And that dinner would be the first of two pizza stops I had planned for our final pair of meals on the trip. 

The style of pizza served in the New Haven area is my favorite. It’s known as apizza and features a thin crust that is magically both crispy and at least a little chewy. The best known purveyor of this style of pie is Pepe’s, but I’ve already been to their original location and Manchester outlet twice each and wanted to visit a couple different places this time around. 

Our first stop – for Sunday’s dinner – was at Modern Apizza in New Haven, which we had taken out from once years ago – although the memories of those pizzas are vague at best. They have been around since 1934 and have a huge following. So it wasn’t surprising that we found a group of people outside waiting to be seated when we arrived. But it was only a little while until our name was called and we were led to a booth in one of the restaurant’s two dining rooms. 

The menu doesn’t have much beyond pizza. What else would be needed at such a place? 

We ordered a pair of small pies – one half plain and half with black olives and the other a clams casino pizza with white sauce. I usually order a basic white clam pie when I’m eating apizza, but the clams casino version had intrigued me for a while and I decided it was time to give it a shot.

To wash down the pizza, I also ordered a bottle of the house soda at most of the famous New Haven-area pizzerias – Foxon Park. Root beer was my flavor of choice. 

Our pizzas arrived before too long and I quickly took the requisite photos so eating them could commence.

The crusts were well-done, as is generally the case with apizza. They also managed to have the desired chew, while the cheese and sauce on the plain half were bursting with flavor. That pie in particular was unquestionably one of the better ones I’ve had over the years and worthy of its lofty reputation.

The other pie was also excellent. It really did have the flavor of clams casino – in fact, it tasted better than the version we had at the previous day’s lunch in East Windsor. My only minor issue was that there was a bit too much going on in terms of how crowded this pizza was with toppings. I wound up removing a few of the peppers.

As much as I enjoyed it, I’ll probably stick with the basic white clam pie from now on. 

After leaving Modern, we had one meal of significance remaining on this trip – Monday’s lunch. And that would also feature New Haven-style apizza; only we’d be eating it in neighboring West Haven.

We had been to Zuppardi’s Apizza once before while visiting Connecticut, but it was long enough ago and the memory of it so positive that we decided it was time to return. 

There must have been something magical going on around that region in 1934. Just as was the case with Modern Apizza, Zuppardi’s also opened that year. 

When I put out a list of the foods that belong in my roadfood pantheon a while back, the white clam pizza I had during that previous visit to Zuppardi’s was on it. We didn’t have enough of an appetite left on this occasion to order two pies and decided to get a plain one, but here is a shot of that earlier white clam pie.

In addition to the pizza, my wife had a salad, while I ordered a glass of Foxon Park white birch beer.

When our medium pie arrived, the first thing I noticed was that it wasn’t as well done as the ones we ate the previous evening. My wife mentioned that it appeared to be carrying some excess grease. She wiped it off her slices, but I wasn’t disturbed by its presence. 

While it wasn’t as dark, I’m going to go out on a limb here and call this crust the greatest I’ve ever had. It was slightly thicker than the Modern Apizza crust, but it had such a wonderful crunch with every bite while still possessing the desired chew. On top of that, the lack of char may have made it a bit easier to taste the crust’s excellent flavor. 

Having said that, I didn’t think the cheese and sauce were quite as flavor-packed as what we had the previous evening. 

It’s tough to say which pizzeria I preferred between Modern and Zuppardi’s – the one with the slightly better crust or the slightly tastier cheese and sauce package. They are both unquestionably among the nation’s elite pizza purveyors, as is Pepe’’s. I’ve yet to try Sally’s of New Haven and will have to do that on a future trip. We may have opted for them instead of Zuppardi’s for that reason this time, but their slightly later opening time swayed us in the other direction. 

The trip could have been over at that point. We had both enjoyed more than our fill of great food in the previous 24 hours. But rather than heading home on 95, we decided to cut across southern Connecticut to take a different route. And doing so took us right through Bethel, the home of one of the state’s best known ice cream parlors – Dr. Mike’s. 

Although I had never been there before, I’ve known about Dr. Mike’s for over 20 years via the old roadfood message board that I frequented. Its ice cream has a reputation for being ultra rich. This place put the super in super-premium – or so I had read.

I wasn’t in love with their flavor selection and settled on a small scoop of black raspberry, while my wife went with a kiddie scoop of chocolate lace, which was sweet cream ice cream with chocolate-covered caramel chunks. 

As opposed to the experience we had in Essex the previous day, the scoops at Dr. Mike’s were huge. I struggled to make it through the small one I ordered. I’d have never finished a medium.

Nonetheless, the quality was every bit as great as I had read. This was incredibly good ice cream. While it had a smooth consistency, it was so dense that my first spoon snapped in half at one point. I didn’t ask but have no doubt that they use only the finest ingredients. The quality is unmistakable with each bite. 

That really was all the food we had room for on this trip. As is always the case when we visit Connecticut, it was a great time with memorable dining experiences. 

While making our way south toward the Philly region, my wife was already discussing the possibility of a future road trip to Vermont and New Hampshire to see their capitals – and of course eat – with an extended pit-stop along the way to visit our friends in Connecticut. Look for that report in a year or two.