Tag Archives: lunch

If you’ve never been gobsmacked when you walked into a restaurant, then you’ve never been to Johnson Creek Tavern.

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After our horse drawn carriage tour of Beaufort…(did you say Byoo-fert like I taught you?)

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We strolled along the harbor for a spell.

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Then headed over the bridge to explore the Sea Islands.

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Since the husband was hungry we stopped for a late lunch. Not much was open this time of year but we found a spot on the marsh called Johnson Creek Tavern.

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It was an unassuming little place, and while I don’t know exactly what I was expecting…

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It definitely wasn’t this.

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Every square inch of the place was covered in money.

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Yes, as in real U.S. currency. Ones, fives and tens. Most had names or funny sayings written on the face.

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One bad margarita….

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Some run of the mill hushpuppies with, oh the horror, margarine …

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And a terrible bowl of gumbo later, we decided we wouldn’t be eating lunch here… but we did marvel at the decor and inquire about its origins.

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It started at the bar decades ago as these things do. The first dollar spent, a big tip, a foreign bill brought back from faraway lands. But then it grew…

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And grew and grew.

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Now… they harvest the bounty every so often and donate it all to charity. Last year a veterans group was the happy recipient of over $11,000.

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And that’s money well spent.

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The flamingo agrees.

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Boo to shuttered breweries and bad lunches.

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After we finished with the antique store in the old mill, we strolled around and checked out the rest of the building.

Stores and office space on the first few floors, luxury apartments on the top.

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I loved this reclaimed bench.

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I did not love the fact this brewery was empty and shuttered tight. Boo to that.

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This is the Silver Street Tavern which came highly recommended.

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I passed on the Afternoon Delight as I prefer not to drink sh*t… good, in a cup or otherwise. I went with the Key Lime Gin Fizz…

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Which tasted just like a basic gin and tonic… so meh to the cocktails.

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The husband started with his go to appetizer, French Onion soup. Sadly it was sub par with a strange charred flavor.

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His chicken pot pie wasn’t really a pie and while the flaky top looked promising, it was cold, full of potatoes and quite dry.

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I went with the homemade crab cake sandwich and call bullsh*t on the homemade. It was tiny and tasted like a frozen Mrs. Paul.

Needless to say we won’t be returning there for another meal.

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Nothing to see here, just a sunbathing seal floating by.

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We had lunch at the Muddy Rudder last week..

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Why the name?

Legend has it that many years ago the tugboat Portland slowly wound its way up the nearby Cousins River. Its destination was Yarmouth, and its purpose was to provide a place for good food, drink, and hospitality. A harsh nor’easter besieged the boat at its mooring and strong winds grounded and overturned her. The restaurant is built on that site.

But wait…. as we were sipping our adult beverages something was spotted outside.

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Do you see it?

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My iPhone camera doesn’t do him justice, but that’s one very chill seal slowly floating by on a chunk of rapidly melting ice.

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Wedge salad and clam chowder later…

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He was still floating. Though he’d flipped over on his stomach and turned to face foward.

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Fried scallops and a stuffed haddock with sherry lobster cream sauce later? He was gone, and we were full. Just another average day on the Maine coast….

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Strange things seen whilst shopping.

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I spent a long over due retail therapy day with my girlfriend recently. Of all the things I’ve missed over the past year, that ranks pretty high on the list. One of our stops was Goodwill, where I saw this:

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Here’s hoping they hire someone who knows how to spell this time.

Further down the road, I saw this oddly named store.

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And something tells me they’re not talking about the corned beef variety.

At TJMaxx I found this disturbing product.

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No need to wash that blouse you’ve worn 27 times. Just give it a little spritz and be on your malodorous way.

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Halfway through our shopping extravaganza… it was time for lunch. This is normally not a problem since South Portland has a plethora of restaurants. But since no one wants to go back to work, every single place we tried was understaffed and had an hour long wait. With a groan of desperation, we ended up at Red Robin where I spotted a most unappetizing burger on the menu.

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#1. Putting a burger between two pieces of greenery does not magically transform lettuce into a bun. Just, no.

And more importantly –

#2. Do not name your abomination of a burger ‘The Wedgie’. Creeping underwear issues do not make my mouth water.

(And if they make you salivate? Please exit my blog and don’t come back.)

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I should have known this was coming.

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The Barn Mahal is the gift that keeps on giving. It grows. It changes. It morphs into something I no longer recognize as a barn.

Why do I say this?

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Because last week my husband took me shopping for the next addition to his man cave extraordinaire.

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Yes.

He wants a refrigerator.

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And because he’s a man who demands instant gratification, he wanted to go home with it that day… which we quickly discovered was impossible. Thank you Covid 19…. yet another reason you suck.

All the refrigerators pictured on this blog, every last one of the small barn appropriate models that were on the display floor?

Unavailable.

It was enough to send us to our local pub for a drink… or two, and lunch.

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Which for me was a massive fried haddock sandwich with homemade onion rings. For the husband?

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A tool box and the light filtering blind we bought for the window we always sit in front of. The sun shines through it something fierce and we were tired of our bartender talking to us with his hand over his eyes.

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For this kindness we refused payment… support your local businesses!…but received 4 free drinks when the bill was presented.

A win win.

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And then it was back to the elusive we’ll show it to you but you can’t have it, neener neener refrigerator shopping.

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The absolutely only one anyone had in stock was this small, wonderfully inexpensive model.

The husband vetoed that. Not enough room for beer.

So we spent a fruitless day, visited 7 stores and ended up coming home to order this one online.

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Ample beer storage will be had…

But not for a week or two.

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Backyard wildlife, homicide division.

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Mother and Bambi are chowing down regularly and trying to lay on extra winter pounds.

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But sadly I was right about the blue eyes fading. Once this little one grows up we won’t be able to distinguish him/her so easily.

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But look who’s made our backyard his new hunting ground….

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A juvenile Coopers Hawk.

He perches on the bird feeder pole and waits patiently for lunch to drop in.

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I got excited when I saw this:

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And was seriously hoping mother red squirrel had met her doom…

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But unfortunately it was a dove.

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Better luck next time guy.

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I should have known.

 

I should have known finding that tasty take out a while back was a fluke.

We really do have the worst luck when it comes to grab it and go, (unlike the President) but since we liked the last little place, we gave it another try for lunch.

 

 

Yeah, I knew that as soon as I opened the containers.

 

 

This gelatinous mess was supposed to be crab stuffed mushrooms.

And while admittedly there was some crab, it was basically a soggy tasteless mess. You could have bounced those mushrooms like a rubber ball.

 

 

Husband loves chicken fingers and since these were advertised as homemade, he tried them.

Blech.

The coating was so hard and thick you needed a buzz saw to break through.

 

 

After two appetizers, we decided to split a chicken Caesar salad wrap with sweet potato fries.

Problem was, they put the cold wrap in with the hot fries so the cold sandwich heated up ( melted wrap, warm lettuce and thoroughly liquified dressing ) while the hot fries cooled down ( limp and chewy ). Who does that?

Another total disaster of a meal.