Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick: Day One

Hopelessly unsophisticated by today's standards, my trusty old Jetta has no navigation system, no GPS to suggest alternate routes and no satellite radio to provide real-time traffic reports, so the drive to Bar Harbor ended up being an all-day affair. Surrounded by throngs of families in minivans with bikes strapped to the back and clamshell containers attached to roofs, heading to their preferred beach spots along the Atlantic coast, we crawled through Connecticut, then Massachusetts, then New Hampshire, on that mother of all East Coast highways – the I-95. The traffic congestion finally opened up in Maine, and we briefly considered hitting the coast early and driving up Route 1 – by all accounts a beautiful road through charming coastal villages – but decided against it in the interest of arriving in Bar Harbor at a dinner-appropriate hour. Stepping out of the car in front of the Anchorage Motel in downtown Bar Harbor, however, melted away the stress and frustration of the day-long traffic jam in an instant. I have not breathed cleaner, cooler, more unapologetically fresh air since at least my sojourn to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan a year earlier. A single whiff was enough to tell us that we were in a different, and much more pleasant, world. Cleaned up and changed in Anchorage's minimal but perfectly adequate accommodations (with the exception of pillows, which were the least comfortable I've ever seen with a possible exception of a business hotel in Kyoto some years ago – those were filled with puffed rice, I think), we walked into town in search of dinner.

Bar Harbor is a quaint coastal town, but, lacking a permanent presence that benefits, say, Burlington, VT (University of Vermont) or Annapolis, MD (the Naval Academy), it exists solely for, and depends exclusively on, tourists, and even the most cunning, sophisticated traveler is liable to get tourist-trapped sooner or later. Having done no research on the Bar Harbor culinary scene ahead of time, we resorted to walking up and down the main drag, looking at posted menus. Earlier in the day, J. had irreversibly fixated herself on having lobster and/or steamed clams for dinner, but being two of the three most celebrated foods of the area (the third is blueberries), they didn't really narrow down our choices. We settled on Galyn's, about two blocks from the waterfront, on the strength of fresh fish specials hand-written on a large chalk board by the entrance. The space was quaint, the host polite but not pandering – a good sign in a tourist town – and we were initially encouraged despite the most saccharine form of smooth jazz being piped into the dining room. The food, however, ended up being a mixed bag at best. We started the meal with some steamed clams, which, while criminally overpriced, were the best we had ever had up until then – plump, insanely fresh, smelling faintly of the ocean and bursting with an intense, slightly sweet shellfish flavor. Entrees were more problematic. Not too keen on paying a fortune for tourist-grade lobster, I had got my hopes up for some fresh fish, but the only truly local catch available was haddock, and it was baked. Haddock is bland enough as it is, and a few moments' sear in a pan with a few drops of good olive oil would do wonders for the fish, but Galyn's clearly did not think so, or didn't care enough to think about it at all. Worse, all their fish was served with the dreaded rice and vegetable of the day. Perhaps my big city snobbery is getting the best of me, but in this day and age there is no excuse not to tailor the side dishes to the featured ingredient. I mean, how difficult is it to throw your salmon over some sauteed spinach? Sticking to her plan, J. ordered lobster. It came – you guessed it – with rice and vegetable of the day, but she said the lobster itself was good. I opted for lobster pasta, which, while also inexcusably expensive, was quite satisfying. The linguine was perfectly al-dente, and the basic sauce of olive oil, white wine, cubes of fresh tomato and a surprisingly generous heaping of garlic (one way in which the generally high culinary standards of today did rub off on Bar Harbor) framed the large chunks of fresh lobster meat nicely without overpowering them. My initial impression was that the tail was a little tough and therefore overcooked, but I was to be proven wrong the next day. Galyn's strength turned out out to be in their beverages. The wine list was full of interesting bottles, but we opted for some locally-made beer – Thunder Hole Brown Ale from the Bar Harbor Brewing Company. It was delicious – a deep reddish-brown, with a rich yeasty aroma and beautifully balanced – not a hop bomb that destroys food, but not a wimp easily overpowered by a bowl of garlicky pasta either.

On the way into the restaurant, I spotted its quaint-looking bar, and eager to shake the last bits of the long drive, we retired there after the meal. It was lovely – small, cozy, inviting, and, amazingly for a Saturday night at the start of the tourist season, empty. J. played it safe with a decaf, but with the temperature outside now in the low sixties, I couldn't resist a Manhattan, which was excellent. After chatting a bit with the bartender who expressed amazement (though no disappointment) at the lack of a crowd, we toasted to the official start of the trip and ambled back to the Anchorage through the side streets, the Manhattan delightfully doing its job.