The Great Maine Lobster Roll Arguement

This past summer I had a chance to run a Lobster Shack in Maine.  It was a awesome experience for me to say the least. This would be the actual first time that I ever got to work with live Lobsters, most of the places I had ever worked used frozen Lobster tails. That in itself is a no no in the New England states. So this was an amazing experience for me.

The big debate in Maine is the Lobster Rolls and how to prepare them. So I had the privalige of taking a newly opened restaurant who did not use any seafood the previous season and make it mine. Being as I'm not a Lobster fan, I had never tasted a Lobster Roll, but I was up for the challenge!

My first goal; to learn how to properly break and pick a hard shelled Lobster. This was the simple step, till I got to the tiny legs and found out the best way is to suck the meat out. Well I'm surely not going to suck a customers meat out for them. LOL. So that didn't work for me.

Tip: The best way to get the succulent meat out of those tiny legs.... A rolling pin or a jar. Simply roll it back and forth till the meat is all out!

Second goal: to try making this "Lobstah" salad for the rolls and making mine the best in all of Maine. Gee could the expection from my bosses be any more demanding. LOL

So I started experimenting with different fillers, dressings, and buns or rolls. Leaving the meat ALWAYS chunky for good measure.  None of them worked with any of my food taste testers. Back to the drawing board. It was at this point that I started going through the millions of recipes on Lobster Rolls. One thing they all agreed upon; the New England style hot dog bun HAS to be toasted. No if's, ands, or buts about that one. The next thing everyone agreed on; it has to be Hellmann's Mayonnaise. Again, no way around it so don't even try to pass a Lobstah Roll off to a Mainerd with another myao in it.

It was at this point I started going around to the Best Known competition to get one of thier rolls and pick them apart....

Linda Bean's $14.95 for a 1/4 pound Lobster Roll. Meat was shredded, had fillers. Looked tiny to me.

Red Eats $14.99 for a 1/4 pound Lobster Roll with recogniction as one of the state's best Lobster Rolls. Lobster meat was frozen, not fresh picked and tiny.

Port Clyde General Store $9.99 again 1/4 pound Lobster Roll. The bun way bigger then the actual amount of meat and it was made with just mayo, but atleast the meat was chunky.

So from those 3 places I took my que and pieced together what became known as one of Rockland's best Lobster Rolls.

My recipe for the perfect Lobster Roll was simple; fresh picked Lobster Meat (chilled after picked), enough mayonnase to just get it wet, served on a toasted bun with a sprinkle of dill. My meat was chopped and when all was said and done weighed out to just below a 1/2 pound.

People went nuts over this Lobster Roll! My poor helper was mad at the amount of Lobster we were picking a day, 125lbs in the morning, then again in the afternoon. People couldn't get enough of these Lobster Rolls! We had 3 customers alone that came in daily to get multiple Lobster Rolls for themselves.

Just think if the owners don't threaten to shut it down ever year and finally break down and buy more advertising, they might someday have the best in the state of Maine!