Dinner is Served: Gilligan’s Clam Bar, Mt. Ivy

BY ANDREW SMITH

This month my choice of where to eat was easy as I have passed by it ever since it opened and I love seafood. I speak of Gilligan’s Clam Bar on Route 202 in Mount Ivy. The place is easy to find right off exit 13 of the PIP. Right away you can see how nice the place is. Very clean and orderly for family dining.

The menu is spacious with so much to choose from it’s almost hard to decide. Right off, as regular readers will know, I love Cobb Salads and they have it. However that is a meal in itself if eaten with an appetizer and I wanted to try something off the seafood menu so I had to argue with my natural instincts. I decided upon the stuffed clams as an appetizer and then I had another big decision to make for the main course. Do I take the Cape Cod Combo, the deep fried flounder, the clamp strips, or the fish and chips? I narrowed it down to the Cape Cod Combo and the fish and chips which was another wrestling match. After two out of three falls I chose the Cape Cod Combo with my usual seltzer with a lemon wedge. It consists of fried flounder, scallops, and shrimp. I asked for onion rings instead of fries which was no problem to substitute.

The stuffed clams were very tasty, spiced just enough to be flavorful and not too much to bite your palate. The combo was nicely battered. The fish was nice and moist but not as large a piece as I might have expected, but nice nonetheless. The scallops were tasty and moist as were the shrimp and in both cases they were nicely-sized. The wait staff was very nice and I was pleasantly surprised to find that mine was an old friend, Karen, whom I’ve known going all the way back to my halcyon days at Annie’s Snack Shack who took good care of me as she always did            .

The entire feast cost $25.18 and was more than worth it. The atmosphere was relaxed and unhurried with a greenhouse tropical theme which I enjoyed.