The Brewster Fish House Review

The Brewster Fish House: Very good food and drink, with incredible lobster chowder

Overall rating: 90

Food rating: 90

I'd heard about The Brewster Fish House from the same friend who had recommended Fin. The Brewster Fish House doesn't take reservations, though, and is typically very busy, so we hadn't tried it. However, this week is back to school for some locales, so Cape Cod is much quieter than usual for a pre-Labor Day week and thus we made it in early to a nearly empty restaurant.

The location is small but the tables are not crowded together, however it was overly air conditioned. The wait staff were welcoming and helpful with recommendations.

I tried two mixed drinks both of which were very good and both of which were unusual flavors. Not the sort of thing that everyone would necessarily like, and this foreshadowed much of the meal.

For appetizers, I ordered an odd seared foie gras preparation that included herring and white peaches. It was very good but not incredible. My wife ordered a sashimi special that she felt similarly about. However, the waitress had said people go out of their way to get their lobster bisque, and so we also shared a bowl of the bisque. Although I love lobster, I'm nearly always disappointed in lobster bisque. Not so at The Brewster Fish House. Their lobster bisque was one of the more wonderful foods I've eaten, creamy with chunks of lobster, but not overly heavy or improperly seasoned. I'm not sure how better to describe it, but it's worth eating there just for the bisque. I also tried some of someone else's fish chowder, and this was very good.

For mains, my wife got lobster prepared out of the shell with pain perdue, mushrooms, tomatoes, fennel, and some beef bone marrow. This was very good. I had fluke with couscous served with brown butter dashi poured into the bowl. The fluke was delicious, though the skin was a bit tougher and/or less crispy than it might have been. The flavor combination was unusual.

For dessert, I got an odd plate of panna cotta served with a topping of whipped cream, some fresh slices of fruit and blueberries in a separate section of the plate, and a third section with olive oil cake topped with peach ice cream. There didn't seem to be much coherence to the dessert. All three parts were good, though the cake/ice cream was best and the panna cotta a bit dull even with the fruit.

Another member of our group got blackberry sorbet (a song by Prince has been running through my head since), and did not like it. However I thought it was really amazingly good though with a very strong and somewhat sour flavor; I'm not a sorbet fan but this was wonderful.

So, reviewing this restaurant is a bit tricky. First, I think the flavors are unusual and this is not an ideal place for people who do not like strong or strange flavors. However, I'm mainly focused on this because the group included people who were less-than-thrilled with such foods, and usually we're out on our own where I wouldn't be commenting on this. Second, and more central to the issue, is that much of the food was very good but not great, the drinks were excellent and strange, and the lobster bisque was so incredibly good that we would be eating here again no matter what the rest of the meal was like.

So the 90 rating needs some explanation as it overrates the overall food a bit, and dramatically underrates the lobster bisque. That said, The Brewster Fish House is one of the very best places I've eaten on Cape Cod.

Buca's Tuscan Roadhouse Review

Overall rating: 73

Food rating: 75

Buca's Tuscan Roadhouse: Good Italian food on Cape Cod for very high prices

We were in Harwich for a few days, and Buca's was one of two expensive restaurants we tried in two nights. The second night we ate at Fin.

Online reviews of Buca's are mostly superb. We arrived early in the evening, and parking in their lot was quick and easy. The hostess and wait staff were welcoming and pleasant, though the dining area itself was a bit crowded with tables close to each other and to walls.

We started off with some specialty drinks that were fine, including a "Sicilian Margarita" made with blood orange liqueur, and a bourbon/rye drink. Bread served with olive oil was excellent.

The menu is very large, and we asked for recommendations, and were told that the specialty of the house appetizer was "Carciofi Ripieni Alla Buca": grilled artichoke hearts stuffed with gorgonzola and mascarpone, and wrapped with prosciutto, with a balsamic reduction. While this sounded amazing, it really wasn't very interesting to eat.

For entrees, I again had a specialty of the house, listed on the menu as "Caccuicco", but pronounced "cacciucco" by our waitress, though when I asked about this she quickly said she wasn't sure. I checked Google later and the waitress was correct; presumably she knew the spelling on the menu was a typo. However it's pronounced, it's a Tuscan fish stew that they described as similar to a bouillabaisse, but with a tomato base. This was made with fish and various shellfish, all cooked perfectly and with some nice garlic toast. Again, though, the dish as a whole wasn't really that interesting or tasty. Other dishes at the table were similarly well prepared but not that special.

Rather than  having dessert, we went out for ice cream at one of the local places we like in the area.

All in all, this was a perfectly nice place to get a somewhat upscale Italian dinner. The food was good but nothing special, though the bread was delicious. The problem is the price. The Cacciucco was $32 and the artichoke appetizer was $14 for a small portion; drinks were similarly priced. All of this would be fine if the food were as wonderful as it sounded, but for food that was just nicely prepared and moderately tasty, Buca's does not provide good value.

After our dinner there and before we went to Fin, I was left wondering whether the summer tourist nature of Cape Cod means that prices are inherently exorbitant for food that is only okay. We go to the Cape fairly often, but only rarely eat in fine restaurants. We had an experience of a restaurant on Nantucket a number of years ago where again the price seemed out of proportion to the setting and food quality.

Fin Review

Overall rating: 85

Food rating: 89

Fin: Delicious food, somewhat tense atmosphere

Fin was the second of two expensive meals we had in two nights on Cape Cod. The first at Buca's was overpriced and had us concerned about what this second meal would be like.

We were staying in Harwich, and had a fairly late reservation at Fin, which meant a relatively dark drive to Dennis. Despite help from the GPS, we had some trouble figuring out which entrance to take to park for the restaurant.

Fin is located in an antique house, and we were seated on the second floor. We were on time for our reservation, but had a several  minute wait as they got things ready to seat us. The hostess and the wait staff seemed harried and tense. They were perfectly pleasant, but there was nothing relaxing about the atmosphere from the moment we arrived.

The antique house was pretty, but probably contributed to the problem. Both we and the wait staff had to deal with a steep flight of stairs to reach the second floor. Tables were close together, and the space was overly air-conditioned, with cool air blowing on us during dinner.

The floorboards were such that anytime a patron or wait staff walked by, our table and my seat bounced up and down. Writing this, it sounds like some odd picky complaint, but it was actually quite distracting to have our meal and conversation disrupted whenever someone walked past our table.

We started off with two martinis: a pomegranate martini and a sour apple martini. Both were good but overly sweet for my taste, though my wife liked both of them. Rolls were slow to come to the table but very good.

We asked for recommendations,  and both of us had the house specialty appetizer, the oyster chowder. It was cream based, with bacon, chive oil, and white truffle oil and was amazing: much lighter and fresher than a typical clam chowder. For an entree I had hoped to get a halibut special, but it ran out just as we ordered. Instead I had grilled "garlic-thyme shrimp" served with some fried polenta and accompanied by spinach and roasted tomatoes and peppers that was delicious though not as amazing as the chowder (hard not to be disappointed after that initial course). My wife had scallops prepared with raisins, pine nuts, and prosciutto, and accompanied by a cauliflower puree. This was all wonderful.

For dessert, we were told that Fin has its own pastry chef, and we had a very nice chocolate tart with a raspberry puree.

It was hard not to compare this experience to Buca's, where we had been the night before. Each course was several dollars less expensive than at Buca's, but was dramatically tastier and more interesting. If Fin were in Boston, the food would place it among the best Boston seafood restaurants.

The tense atmosphere was unfortunate. It made for a less relaxing night out than it would have been otherwise and makes me hesitant to recommend Fin as strongly as it deserves for its food. That said, we will certainly go back the next time we are in the area.