"Best lobster roll in Boston" is the claim that brought me to this seafood shack located directly under one of Logan's flight paths in East Boston. Actually it was the fact that this one of the places my boy Anthony Bourdain visited during his taping of No Reservations: Boston. I made it out there as part of an impromptu bike tour of East Boston and Winthrop, but that is a story for another post. The place is much smaller than I expected, literally just a small room with the counter you order from and then a handful of stools lined up along the front windows.
The good news is that the roll lived up to its moniker and is the best roll I have had in Boston. The bad news is that it was perhaps the second best lobster roll I have ever had, beaten by a $10 lobster roll sold from a cart in downtown Newburyport (I really need to visit that guy again!). The thing is enormous, packing an entire half pound of lobster meat onto a single bun. In my opinion, the perfect lobster roll is a combination of fresh lobster meat, a little mayo, maybe some lettuce delivered in perfect proportion on a buttered, grilled split-top New England roll. The amount of meat at Belle Isle overpowers the taste of the bun beneath. This isn't a problem of course, you just pull the excess meat off until you've arrived at the proper ratio. Needless to say, it was a great meal and I got to follow in the footsteps of Tony.
