Recently I was lucky enough to spend the weekend in Martha’s Vineyard with my family. We love the island and I’ve been able to visit at least 10 times in the last 15 years. While we all like to try new things and visit new places, I think consistently returning to the Vineyard and doing the same activities such as clamming in Katama Bay, eating at the same restaurants, going to the same general spot on South Beach, and so forth are not playing it safe or being monotonous – they are tradition.
The island hasn’t changed much as far as we are concerned (though recently an eco-friendly islander not-so-politely disagreed as I’m pretty sure he considered tourism a form of rape), but it’s comforting to know that certain things haven’t changed and that places like Jimmy Seas will be there waiting for us.
Jimmy Seas (no official website available – atrocious) is an Italian restaurant in Oak Bluffs that we pretty much go to every year. Everyone in our family loves it – the smell of garlic is toxic, the portions (often served in large skillets) are huge with even bigger flavors, the staff (while busy) has always been kind, and we’ve walked away satisfied every time. They have dozens of variation of the same formula – pasta + seafood + sauce/broth + flavor magic = awesome.
If one ingredient were to represent Jimmy Seas it would be garlic. They even have Jimmy Seas stickers that have their name, a picture of a head of garlic, and the phrase “Eat Garlic Live Love Last Longer”. While the actual health benefits of garlic are debatable, I’ll blindly follow their recommendation. Our favorite appetizer is roasted garlic that we spread over bread like butter, thus beginning an evening of offensive breath.
The dish that we all oooo and ahhhh over every year is the lobster fra diavolo (“brother devil”). Jimmy Seas was the first place I ever ate lobster and this was the dish that I had. I was around 15 years old. Insane, right? I can’t believe I didn’t like seafood when I was younger (I am still picky about quality) and even crazier is that it took me that long to eat lobster. And get this – at that time they offered you the choice of having the lobster served in or out of the shell. Of course being wimpy at the time I went the easy way out.
I noticed that Jimmy Seas doesn’t even offer that choice anymore, and I’m glad that they won’t let anyone cheat like I did. The presentation is comical and mouth-watering all at the same time.
This year I had not had lobster once, and I missed the dinner at the Homeport the evening before, I decided to go for it. The picture is below. I ate every bit of the lobster and almost all of the pasta. The pain was worth it.
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