Lusty Lobster isn’t a restaurant. It’s a seafood wholesaler with a small retail market in Highlands. It’s where many top Shore area chefs buy seafood for their restaurants and many home cooks pick up shellfish and finfish for their own dinners.
If I’m cooking at home, I go to “Doug’s,” as many call Lusty Lobster because its long been owned and operated by Doug Douty. He was the first fishmonger I knew who made a serious point—in the 1980s, mind you—of selling only real-deal, locally caught sea scallops. Once upon a time, Matey, far too many sea scallops sold at retail were frauds. But that’s another story.
Today, my mind is on the foods of summer. Memorial Day is in the rear-view mirror and the calendar is firmly locked into June. Solstice, schmolstice. I’m ready for the meals of summer: seafood and produce. My tickets to edible happiness.
So I’ll count on the wild-caught fishes and the expertly sourced shellfish from Lusty Lobster when cooking at home the next few months, and I’ll grab—for immediate consumption—from the prepared food section at “Doug’s” my favorites: the poke bowls always made in-house; the spirited Japanese ika sansai (squid) salad; the smoky trout pate; the oh-so-simple salmon salad. I grab them not because I’m too tired to cook, but because I’m hungry the second I see them at Lusty Lobster.
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I grab something else, particularly in the summertime: My friend Deborah Smith’s immediately iconic book called “The Jersey Shore Cookbook,” published by Quirk last year. Its contents span the coast, from Keyport in the Bayshore to Cape May at the bottom of the Shore proper. I love being reminded of the restaurants I’ve long adored through the signature recipes in Smith’s cookery book, and I enjoy reading about the spots she’s discovered that I immediately put on my own dine card.
Keyport Diner’s Breakfast Club Sandwich—Yes! The recipe’s right there to replicate at home. The “Watermelon Gazpacho” represents my beloved My Kitchen Witch in Monmouth Beach. It is possibly the most perfect summer recipe ever.
Chef Mike’s ABG in South Seaside Park is where Mike Jurusz presides over an always-adventurous menu that features Crab Cakes with Chili Remoulade and Jersey Tomatoes. Where the Shore meets the Bay at the southern end of the Garden State in Cape May Point, is The Red Store, and if you haven’t had chef-owner Lucas Manteca’s Lobster Ceviche and Tostones, you’ve let summer pass you by.
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I can’t pass up this opportunity to offer words of praise about a few of my personal Shore favorite spots: Mustache Bill’s, the James Beard Award-winning diner in Barnegat Light on Long Beach Island; White House, the legendary sub shop in Atlantic City, also a Beard-Award winner; and Allen’s Clam Bar, a swell Shore-style clam shack in New Gretna.
At Mustache Bill’s, I score the fried fluke, every time. It’s locally caught and perfectly cooked, every time. At White House, I often snag the White House Special, with extra-everything. (Why not?) At Allen’s, it’s the fried lobster, where the fried tails are inexplicably long. Dipped in butter, or not, they are the definition of yummy. And I don’t use that word lightly.
Happy June! Here’s to a four-star summer.
My Handy Address Book
Lusty Lobster: 88 Bay Avenue, Highlands. 732-291-1548. bestlobster.com.
Keyport Diner: 83 Broad Street, Keyport. 732-497-0808. 83broadstreetdiner.com.
My Kitchen Witch: 29 Beach Road, Monmouth Beach. 732-229-3033. mykitchenwitch.com.
Chef Mike’s ABG: 24th Street and Central Avenue, South Seaside Park. 732-854-1588. chefmikesabg.com.
The Red Store: 500 Cape Avenue, Cape May Point. 609-884-5757. capemaypointredstore.com.
Mustache Bill’s: West Eighth Street at The Boulevard, Barnegat Light. 609-494-1055.
White House: 2301 Arctic Avenue, Atlantic City. 609-345-1564. whitehousesubshop.net.
Allen’s Clam Bar: 5650 Route 9, New Gretna. 609-296-4106. allensclambar.com.