Top Meals from Delmarva

Hey, folks. It’s been a bit. Good news is that I am safe and sound in Green Bay, Wisconsin watching my first northerner snow fall outside my living room window. Now that we are settled into our new place and unpacking, I am finally able to sit down and continue the farewell series I planned before the move.

Today, I wanted to acknowledge some of my favorite meals and restaurants that I experienced on and around the Delmarva peninsula. While I don’t know if I will ever go back, these establishments deserve the acknowledgement of providing my better food experiences in a region known for amazing seafood. You’ll be surprised by how little of it is actually seafood.

Please keep in mind that these acknowledgements are in no particular order, but many of them have had short articles written here on Eating Normal in the past. Each title header will be a link to an older article when it is available. Without further ado, here are some of my favorite things I ate on Delmarva.

​The Salty Wave Seafood Market - Blue Crab

Less than a week before departing from the peninsula, I finally sat down with my husband to crack into a platter of Maryland blue crab for the first time. I have never once, in my entire life, disassembled an entire crab to pick the entire corpse clean. We eat snow crab legs in the midwest and snow crab legs only, so picking apart these little bastards was as much an experience as it was a delicious meal.

I have not gotten around to giving the Salty Wave the proper acknowledgement of their own article like some of the other locations that will appear on this list, and I may never. I want it known that the hospitality of their staff manifested in some extra crabs on our platter since the mediums they had that day ran a little small. I want it known that was the first place I ate on the entire peninsula that used JO seasoning instead of Old Bay. I want it known I have never had a giant butcher paper tablecloth used to catch bits and pieces of my meal at any restaurant ever. That’s just how you do Blue Crab.

If you ever get a chance, tuck into some blue crab. The process of opening them isn’t one I could figure out on my own, but I was very lucky to have a husband that went through the experience more than once as part of a work lunch.

EasySpeak Spirits - Woodfired Pizza

Milford itself has a pretty small pool of restaurants for residents to tuck into, but EasySpeak came onto the scene shortly after my husband and I moved there. From our first day there we absolutely loved their crab and artichoke pizza, followed closely by their lobster and brown butter pizza that we had our first Valentine’s Day on the peninsula. I know that Dogfish Head’s brewpub also does pizza, but I will say with honesty, I liked what I got out of EasySpeak just a little bit more.

Chesapeake and Maine - Ten Dollar Lobster

Yeah, you read that right. Ten. Dollar. Lobster. This was a special that Dogfish Head’s higher end restaurant on Rehoboth Beach ran on Sundays during the offseason to drive local traffic back in when all the tourists finally left. We got in for my husband’s birthday and polished off three lobsters between the two of us for an exceptional price. Their raw oyster bar provided a lovely supplement.

Bacon Fest - Dewey Beach

The beaches are home to several different food festivals over the course of the year, many of them situated perfectly to attract locals more than tourists. The Bacon Fest at Dewey and Rehoboth Beach was the only one that I managed to get to, and one of my only experiences IN Dewey Beach, but I remember strolling down the street and stopping into the participating restaurants for their festival entries and drinks fondly. Of the entire population of Delmarva, I found Dewey’s locals to be more welcoming than anyone I met in Lewes or Rehoboth. I will look back on the experience fondly.

Stingray - Sushi

It wasn’t hard to find sushi places on the beaches or in the more midland towns of the peninsula, but my favorite experience at any of the sushi bars we managed to visit was at Stingray, a Big Fish Restaurant Group offering just off the main drag of Rehoboth Beach. I don’t think I ever got around to writing them an article either, but despite the prices, the setting and the food made it memorable beyond reason.

Of special mention in terms of Sushi is still Mt. Fuji in Milford, if only for the fact it ran cheaper than anywhere else while still maintaining quality.

Thrasher’s French Fries - Shockingly, French Fries

Dead ass, every other corner of Rehoboth Beach had a Thrasher’s French Fries stall where you could buy either tiny cups of fries or big ass buckets to share. Our last big trip down to the beach, we stopped with friends for a snack to take with us to their apartment. As a woman of Irish heritage and self-proclaimed potato connoisseur, they were the best fries I had in Delmarva regardless of being a tiny food stand, bar none.

Go! Fish - Fish and Chips

I know I just said Thrashers has the best fries in the entire state of Delaware, but the dish Fish and Chips has no better representative than the Go! Fish restaurant on the beach, ran by a real deal British woman. We brought my inlaws to visit when they came to see us, and it was exactly what we all wanted out of the evening.