Looking for Places to Dine

Newport, Rhode Island

I have not been to Newport, Rhode Island, in a couple of years. A friend of mine recently visited and I asked him to write a short article for you. That article is below.

My wife and I vacationed recently for a week with our three children, plus two of their friends in Newport, Rhode Island. When traveling with that many kids, juvenile hunger can bring down financial ruin, and so I planned to put the Weber grill in the backyard of our rented beach house to its fullest use, killing two birds with a single charcoal briquette by keeping my wife out of the kitchen and the kids out of restaurants. You can’t stave off the inevitable, though, and the brood began clamoring for restaurant food at about day three. But where to dine?

If you were energetic, industrious and determined to find the most bang for your buck, you could troll the downtown Newport waterfront, stopping along the overcrowded sidewalks to read menus posted in windows and on kiosks, and buttonhole exiting patrons for immediate reviews. Personally, I’d prefer a hot pin in my eye. I mean, that’s what the internet’s for, right? Besides, what you would find downtown is a multicolored menagerie: The Red Parrot, The White Horse Tavern and The Black Pearl, to name a few. And if experience has taught me anything, it’s not to ask the mother of a new born when the baby is due, but that’s another story. When it comes to restaurants, the wilier the name, the less likely you will enjoy your food. The downtown locations also mean big rents, which require inexpensive help (the preferred genus of this species being the indifferent college student) and high turn over, which again does not translate to an enjoyable repast. What you really want is a smaller place, with a pedestrian name off the beaten path where the locals eat . That’s where Yelp and Trip Advisor can be really helpful. Those sites led me to a joint called “Anthony’s,” which is fish wholesaling operation that runs a restaurant out of the building connected to it’s warehouse in Middletown, just a short drive from Newport up 138A. Also, it had been featured on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives,” on the Food Network. Ordinarily I would count that as a black mark based on Guy Fieri’s capacity to eat almost anything and rave about it, never mind that peroxide job. But, I digress.

138A in Middletown is a typical suburban secondary highway studded with stores, shops and commercial buildings. It is also known as Aquidneck Avenue where Anthony’s is located. There are no crowds, no attractions, no trendy bars, no shops selling overpriced crap like on the Newport waterfront. Anthony’s is located in a low slung building that you could easily drive past if your GPS lady was not telling you to make a legal u turn as soon as possible. There’s plenty of parking right in front, so that’s not a concern. Your first sight once inside is a twenty foot long ice case filled with what looked like very fresh fish, something to keep in mind if you want to take some home and cook. At the end of the case is a register where you must place your order before you sit. Menus are available as you enter. There was a line when we arrived, but it moved quickly. We ordered all manner of fried seafood, including Guy Fieri’s recommendation, the kung pao calamari and the stuffed clams that were kicked up with some chorizo sausage chunks.

After ordering, we took our seats in a large booth. In about ten minutes, our waitress arrived with our order, which was short one item. She immediately ran back to the kitchen put that order in and returned in about five minutes with it. Attentive. Me likey.

There were no complaints from the tribe, but that’s meaningless. Hungry kids are more ravenous than Oprah Winfrey in a cupcake truck. So I tried a little sample from everyone’s dish and found the whole clams clean and sweet and the scallops tasty and moist. The shrimp were good, but a little on the small side and the stuffed clams were a tad too bready for me, though I did enjoy the flavor that the chorizo imparted. The clear winner, though, as advertised, was the kung pao calamari. It was cooked right, so not rubbery, the fried coating was not too heavy and the kung pao sauce and sliced cherry peppers (also fried) added a nice zing to go with the peanuts scattered over the dish. A winner. Fries came with the platters, and they were well cooked without being overly saturated in oil. The bill came to somewhere a hundred bucks. Try eating a satisfying meal for seven with no complaints on the waterfront. Good luck.

We walked out of Anthony’s feeling full without feeling disgusting, a good sign that they are changing their oil more frequently than every 5,000 miles. The employees had been friendly without being annoying and the service had been quick. Overall, the food was much better than average for the price and we had avoided the crush of downtown. So my advice in Newport is to avoid all restaurants named after colored animals, and go to Anthony’s. Unless someone opens a joint called the Purple Rhino. That might be worth a look.

Article by Joseph Nasone