Jeff’s Maine Seafood

3/5

Jeff’s Restaurant is a fine-dining restaurant located right next to Taylor Park in downtown Saint Albans, serving seafood in the unlikeliest of places: Franklin County, Vermont.

In addition to the main dining room, Jeff’s also offers a lounge and catering services. Their menu includes the traditional seafood dishes, all of which are from Maine, such as baked stuffed haddock/shrimp, lobster roll, seafood stew, and lobster Mac & cheese, and they also serve burgers, salads, and pasta, all made with fresh, farm-to-table ingredients.

I usually get the fried shrimp and Caesar salad for lunch, though I have also gotten the fried haddock.

First things first, let’s delve into the fried shrimp. The fried shrimp comes with French fries, coleslaw, and tartar sauce. I usually substitute the fries for a side Caesar salad, but I do get the coleslaw, and this is one of the better coleslaws I’ve had. Some coleslaws I’ve had are either too dry or too drenched in the sauce, but this coleslaw had the right balance of sauce. As for the fried shrimp itself, they take me right back to Maine, when I’m eating fried shrimp on the patio of a seafood restaurant, gazing out at the ocean. The breading around the shrimp gives them that nice crunchiness, and squeezing the lemon wedge over them gives it that added freshness. Of course, since Vermont does not have coastline, the shrimp aren’t as fresh tasting as if you go to, say, Maine and order shrimp there. But for northern Vermont, these shrimp are about as close to Maine seafood as you can get, and I highly recommend them if you do go to Jeff’s, and the same goes for the fried haddock.

Now for the review of the Caesar salad! If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that I have a bit of an obsession with Caesar salad, and I love trying it from different restaurants and comparing them. I will say that Jeff’s Caesar salad is pretty good. The dressing, which is house-made, has a unique taste, unlike any Caesar salad I’ve had before. It almost tastes fishy, perhaps from the anchovies. It’s not a bad taste, but I prefer other Caesar dressings. Cheese-wise, this salad had a good amount of shredded Parmesan cheese, and as with most Caesar salads, this comes with a lemon wedge and croutons. Overall, this is a good Caesar salad, but not one of the best I’ve ever had.

For dessert, Jeff’s has a nice maple creme brulee, which is a classic maple custard with a layer of caramelized sugar on top. I was not a big fan of the caramelized sugar and could have done without it, as I found it to be too hard and almost have a burnt taste, but the maple custard was quite good.