Yesterday was the last day of Stew Leonard’s $6.99 lb lobster sale, and Nancy went a little nuts. She managed to persuade the lobster guy to forget about the eight lobster limit, and arrived home with eighteen of them. We started naming them, but realized we were being silly when we called one Jeffrey and one Geoffrey (Geoffrey had a slightly French swagger). Reginald was a toughie, and we had to bring out the hammer to break the claws. Sweetest of all was the dimunitive Nathalie.
Friends came over and the massacre began. We served Dom Perignon 2006 which was an amazing match, the Champagne slightly young and tight, but calmed down, and cut through the richness of the butter soaked lobsters beautifully. After the first Champagne ran out, we had Henriot 1996, which worked less well, the lobsters worked far better with the higher acidity of the Dom rather than the mellow Henriot, but even so, we ran out of that too. Then it was a combination of pink wines, and a 1990 Gruaud was pulled out for cheese. It’s a good wine but there was a distinct herbal element.
Left with four lobsters, we invited our neighbor friends and gorged on lobster rolls for lunch. Life is good.
I’m going to the Palm in Bal Harbour on saturday. Summer special is for 2 people at $109, you get a 4lb lobster, two apps, and one side. Now if their corkage fee wasn’t $35, I’d be deliberating what to bring!
I’m in Maine right now, across from two lobster docks. The trade war with China has knocked the stuffing out of lobster prices lobstermen are getting at the docks, barely warranting fishing , after expenses. And, Canada is dumping lobsters everywhere to supermarkets, etc…making things worse for the Maine industry. Not sure of the interplay between the two countries’ industries.
A few years back my best friend Claudine Kargere visited us from France. She rode with me when I went to the pound for the lobsters. I told her it was too bad she hadn’t been here the week before… lobsters had been $2.99 a pound but now were up to $3.99. She said “$3.99 a pound? In France we pay more than that for mad cow!!!” I laughed so hard I almost drove off the road.
Only the Harlem store in the city and it was only for this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday. $9.99 at all the other Manhattan stores. The stores outside the city will have the lower price.
Manhattan fish stores tend to loathe dropping the prices on lobster, lest customers get used to the lower price. They continually price them as a luxury item, despite the fact that lobster wholesale prices are very low due to the current glut caused by the trade war.
I actually tried to enlist Christine Huang to be my Stew Leonard’s lobster sherpa, but she took a pass.
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