Pearl Oyster Bar

I remember a day in my childhood when I got over my fear of eating a spiny, clawed, ugly, creature with oozing green innards and learned to embrace the lobster. It happened when I was a child on vacation in Maine, and I have enjoyed the taste of lobster ever since.
After a brief end of summer stint in Maine, and a day of steamed lobster, fried clams, lobster rolls, and blueberry pie, I decided that it was time to visit the restaurant in New York that is heralded as the closest thing to authentic Main cuisine: Pearl Oyster Bar.

Until this past Wednesday, I had been reading about Pearl on a pretty consistent basis and had really wanted to pay a visit. The trip to Maine allowed me to remember how much I liked lobster rolls (Pearl’s most famous dish) and pretty much forced me to go to Pearl’s as soon as I had the chance.

Finally, this past Wednesday I had the chance to try the famous Pearl lobster roll and it was good. It was actually really good, but I couldn’t help but feel like there was something missing. I appreciate Pearl’s efforts to re-create the Main lobster shack with its wood interior, cramped seating and the little wafts of salt water air that seem to surround the place but something is terribly missing from the lobster roll experience. For several hours after dinner I thought about the tasty lobster roll and couldn’t figure out what was unpleasing about this mayonaiss-y lobster-y sandwich on its perfectly grilled sweet hot dog roll. After much pondering, I finally realized that it was the price (I was treated to dinner otherwise I might have realized this immediately.) It’s not that the lobster roll isn’t good, but at $25 dollars a piece, I believe that the concept of the lobster roll is completely misinterpreted.

As I understand it from my childhood, the lobster roll is the leftover claws and other parts of a lobster served with mayonnaise and celery and a little bit of seasoning on a hot dog bun. Because we are receiving the less desirable cuts of lobster, the lobster roll is generally a relative bargain. It’s a cheap taste of Maine that you can eat on the beach with a beer or lemonade, as you smell the sea and play with the sand between your toes. The lobster roll is the food item you purchase in Maine in lieu of regular lobster. You do so because it tastes like lobster but is much cheaper. This is where Pearl Oyster bar fails. I applaud the taste of their interpretation of the lobster roll, but I was let down by what I had heard was close to an authentic lobster shack. I like to eat my lobster rolls within sniffing distance of the water for less than what I would spend on a full steamed lobster; its not that I’m cheap, it’s just the concept. And no lobster roll no matter how lobster filled and tasty it is can even compare to a bad lobster roll on the beach in Maine.

A Proustian Experience in Maine

The Marginal Way in Ogunquit, Maine

I was eating dinner at a friend’s house last week when she asked me the question, “did you have a good childhood?” I thought this was a rather odd and random question, but I thought about it for a moment before responding, “I had an excellent childhood.”

She then looked at me and replied, “well, what were some of your best memories?” I thought about my childhood, and some memories came to my head, but I couldn’t think of any that I would describe as being the ‘best.’ Could it be that I didn’t have a good childhood? I knew this wasn’t true. I could see my friend getting patient so I told her “there are none that really jump out,” at the same time feeling like I was letting down my parents.

“Good!” she said, “Psychological studies have shown that children with good childhood’s have trouble remembering the best moments while children who have been abused or had miserable childhood’s have a couple that stand out because they are few and far between.”


Despite this assurance that my childhood was, in fact, good, my response to this question has been haunting me for some time. Why couldn’t I think of the best moments of my childhood? I have some very distinct memories, but most of them are rather strange. I very vividly remember thinking there was an octopus clinging to the outside of my bedroom window on the 10th story of our Manhattan apartment, I remember looking at a sparkler for the first time, still glowing orange after sparkling, and touching it (it hurt) and I remember my uncle cheating at soccer by carrying the ball all over the field when I was 5 and we were in India. I also remember the water buffalo strolling down the street shortly after.

Why can’t I remember anything that is distinctively ‘good’?

I think the reason for this is because as a child, ‘good’ might be more of a sate of mind than an actual moment. While there may be moments of sensory greatness, there is no equivalent to the habitual happiness you experience as a child.

I came to this conclusion when I went to Ogunquit, Maine over Labor Day weekend, a place my family and I used to go to every summer when I was younger, but also somewhere that I haven’t been in at least 8 years. Everything about Ogunquit made me happy and a rush of memories came racing back to me. I could distinctly remember my first lobster roll on the beach, breaking open mussels to catch crabs (so we could race them) eating mini Reese’s peanut butter cups from the candy store, and eating pie from Pie in the Sky bakery (something my parents would dutifully bring me every year when I was at college.)



Going into Pie in Sky Bakery and smelling fresh pies baking in the back, and eating lobster rolls while looking at the water helped make Ogunquit feel familiar to me again. We ate lunch while looking at the water, walked on the beach, and finished up the day eating steamers and lobsters with lots of butter and some extra bread for sopping it all up.

I don’t think it was the food alone that affected me, but I believe tasting and smelling familiar food in a familiar place that had been lost to me for quite some time did more than simply walking around. I used all five senses to eat my lobster, first smelling it as it arrived at the table; then seeing it, bright red in front of me; touching it as I pulled the meat out of the still hot claws; tasting it as I listened the sounds surrounding me—something that years ago, I had done several times in that exact same place and something that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

As I fell asleep on the ride back home, with the heavy scent of drawn butter and lobster coating my lips, and sand in between my toes, Ogunquit became familiar to me again and I remembered several summers of a childhood that was very good.