Orderinny

Before you leave on a holiday to Maine, which unabashedly proclaims itself as the vacationland of USA on its license plates, consider this: make sure everyone on the trip enjoys eating seafood. Any partiality towards fried food is also very welcome. Seafood, largely fried, sometimes boiled, but always served alongside wickedly good french fries fueled our traipse through the beautiful Maine coastlines and Acadia National Park. Fortunately, we love seafood, and were determined to try everything Maine is famous for, including lobster in any permutation, fried seafood of all kinds and wild blueberries, fresh, in compote, pies, soda and even beer.
We began our education on Maine seafood the moment we crossed the stateline, leaving the highway via Exit no. 3 towards Kittery. There, nestled in the midst of several factory outlet malls is Bob's Clam Hut, a classic New England fry shack famous for what else? clams, and the in-season lobster roll. At 1pm, there was a long line at the place, with shoppers and roadtrippers eager to nosh on some good lunch. We grabbed a lobster roll and fried haddock and sat in the picnic area behind the shack. While the backsides of outlet malls didn't exactly provide much scenery, that also meant we weren't paying for ambience and every dollar spent was going towards the succulent lobster meat binded very lightly in mayo and the freshest bits of fish we have eated in a while.
Next stop, Mount Desert Island, where we stayed for two nights at the Hearthside Inn and made our way on the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak in eastern US, and invariably ate more seafood. Our dinners were classic Maine experiences, the lobster bake, complete with steamed clams, corn on the cob, clam chowder, lobsters and a lot of drawn butter. Slices of freshly made blueberry pie completed the artery clogging meals both times, once at Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound, where we shared a table with two men travelling on their RV from California to Canada, and Stewman Pounds, a tourist trap on the water in Bar Harbor, which surprisingly served up a really tasty and large lobster for very little moolah, courtesy of the 4-6 pm early bird dinner special =p At Ben & Bill's ice cream and fudge shoppe, we saw an interesting ice cream flavor, the lobster flavor, made with fresh vanilla icecream and real lobster chunks. Unfortunately, I was too chicken to try it. For those with unadventurous palates like me, they do serve conventional flavors, including a wild sounding moose droppings flavor, which was actually just malt balls mooshed in chocolate icecream. Nothing quite extreme at all =p
After bidding our goodbyes to Bar Harbor in all its picturesque glory, and to the yummy breakfasts our host Barry and Susan prepared, including blueberry pancakes (yep, we just couldn't get enough of blueberries), we made a stop to the Kennebunks to catch a glimpse of a lighthouse and some fried clam strips at

in Kennebunkport. Chewy, briny and coated with a crunchy batter, they sure made it easier to say goodbye to Maine, where the water's clearer, and air crisper and the skies are bluer anyday.