Monday, September 24, 2012.
New England-Canada Cruise Journal, Day Four: Bar Harbor, Maine.
Bar Harbor bore similarities with Newport. Like that previous port, this was the first time I'd set foot in the place. Access to it required a fifteen-minute ride on a tender boat from the ship across the shallow harbor. Which, as in Newport, was filled with expensive yachts, although neither as many nor as large as we saw in Newport.
Mary Ann led the way off the boat into the town. But as if repelled by an invisible force, she pushed away from the touristy downtown and into the much more utilitarian side streets. There we found supermarket, a drugstore, a diner, and a coffeehouse, all of which clearly appealed to the small population of locals. They were very different from the establishments along the dock and Main Street, whose customers were tourists, people with summer homes here, and the other occasional populations who triple and quadruple the population of Bar Harbor in the summer months.
It was a good example of one of my theories about places that attract many visitors--our own city among them. I believe that visitors are usually better off dealing with tourism-oriented businesses than with those patronized mostly by locals. That flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that one should eat and drink where the locals eat. But locals stay away from places whose food and environments are most strongly local! To those who would dispute this, I ask: How often do you eat in sushi bars, steakhouses, hamburger stands, and pasta/pizza shops? More often than anywhere else, right? Someone coming to New Orleans from out of town would be wasting meals in such places, which have little sense of the local flavor.
Back to Bar Harbor. While wandering in the locals' neighborhood, we found an old man with an array of tables in front of his house, garage-sale style. On the tables were various items crafted in wood. The tables themselves were artistically made, and also for sale. Mary Ann took a shine to the guy, who was very authentically local, right down to his New England accent. She also felt a little sorry for him. She bought a small rolling pin made of chokecherry wood for $25.
After that, however, the three of us agreed that we were in the wrong place for enjoying Bar Harbor, and we returned to Main Street and its shops, bistros, pubs, and other tourist-attracting services. My own quest was for clams casino. Baked on the shells with a topping of bread crumbs, butter, herbs and bacon, it's one of my favorite dishes in the Northeast, and something we almost never get in New Orleans. But while there was lots of clam chowder, pasta with clams, and fried clams, I couldn't find casino.
Mary Ann declared that my search had to end soon, in favor of a place where we could plop down and eat anything that she and daughter would like. To hell with these old Maniac salts. The next restaurant we passed filled the bill. Its specialty was pizza baked in a wood-burning oven. But it also had lobster and other local shellfish. And hamburgers and salads.
The pizza menu allowed customer creativity. Would they make a pizza topped with pesto instead of red sauce, and lobster, assuming I would pay a lobster price? Yes, they said. It was the first thing to arrive, and was good enough that I ate about half of a twelve-inch lobster pizza myself. Even Mary Ann, who professes no interest in lobster--liked this enough to have a wood-grilled lobster for her main course. ML satisfied her burger requirement.
We got to talking with the man who owns not only Blaze but two other restaurants in Bar Harbor. "Only about 5000 people live here year round," he said, "A lot of people have summer homes. In summer, we have about 25,000." This must mean a lot of restaurants operate on a less than twelve-month season.
The boss left, and we sat there waiting for the food. As quickly as the pizza arrived, so slowly did the rest of the order. A trio at an adjacent table gave up on the wait and departed. Does the staff intentionally slow down when the owner is gone? If so, I've never seen such strong evidence of it.
Now MA wanted to take a ride up to Acadia National Park, the main draw for Bar Harbor. The National Park Service operates buses through the park, but by the time we figured that out it was too late to take the tour and get back onto the ship in time. This news only increased MA's desire to go to the park, and the rest of our time in Bar Harbor was spent trying to figure out other ways of choking enough time out of the schedule to make that happen.
While calculating, we sat down at Paddy's Irish Pub, the restaurant of a swell hotel on the waterfront. Our main reason for being there was surely not because we were hungry, but to use the facilities. I got a table, ordered an Irish coffee, and otherwise acted like a paying customer. On the menu I saw something that sounded perfectly ridiculous, but which I was sure the Marys would like when they returned from their missions. Irish nachos were like Mexican nachos, except underlined with Irish-potato chips.
The waiter was the most obviously Irish person I've ever seen. Red hair, blue eyes, a convincing brogue. "Is this actually good? I asked him about the nachos. "Or will my ordering it make me look like the kind of clueless tourist who doesn't belong in an Irish pub?"
The waiter latched immediately onto the joke. "Yes, of course it does, and for being interested in that I must ask you to leave the premises immediately!" A good laugh was enjoyed by all. And the Irish nachos were actually pretty good.
Mary Ann continued to look for ways to get to the park. But we were down to the final two or three tender boats back to the ship. I told them that at least one of us should not be left behind. They were glad to see me go. My transfer was made on a whale-watching boat, pressed into service because so many people had decided to remain in Bar Harbor until the last minute. The spirits who watch over the Marys and other such people conspired to cause their last boat to the ship to beat the whale boat, and we arrived at the stateroom simultaneously. In real-life family sitcom, I play the older male character who is the butt of all jokes.
Dinner in the main dining room featured the best dish we've had in there so far. It was a fish called "plaice." It's a member of the flounder family, and is better known in Europe than on our shores. It was the simple standard preparation, sauteed in butter after being coated with a light batter. It was slightly overcooked, but otherwise excellent. It restored my confidence in the kitchens of Britannia.
