Stuff I Ate: The Black Dog

November 28, 2009

The Black Dog

An iconic part of Martha's Vineyard is the Black Dog Tavern. It's just steps from the ferry landing in Vineyard Haven, where many tourists (aka Off-Islanders) arrive. ABF & I rolled in around 9am Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. ABF's brother, sister-in-law, and their two adorable nieces had arrived there a few days earlier. They met us at TBD for breakfast. ABF and I had barely slept the night before, hitting the road at 3am to make our 8am ferry, so we were a little punchy, but at the moment, company and hunger trumped the sleepiness!

I took a view from our table, looking out onto the water. I hadn't been to the Black Dog since I came here ages ago with my sister, dad and stepmom. I think we even sat at that table in the shot! We had been there for lunch, though, so I was looking forward to see what our breakfast options were.

The breakfast menu is BIG. There are so many options that I had quite a quandary deciding what to get. I ended up ordering Thank George's Bank (I have no idea what that means). It consisted of 2 poached eggs in Hollandaise sauce over a fishcake...sounded promising! I got an English Muffin on the side. The eggs were a little overpoached, almost hard-boiled for one, but the Hollandaise sauce was excellent. The fish cake was HUGE! It took up almost half the plate! I couldn't finish it all, and shared some with ABF and his brother.

ABF ordered the "One Sweet World," which came with 3 pancakes, 2 eggs any way, and bacon. While I'm not normally a pancake person, even I thought these were delicious. They were also bigger than your average pancake. They use real maple syrup, too, which makes SUCH a big difference. I may have had another sample or two of these pancakes (hey! I shared my fishcake, remember?)

We left breakfast quite stuffed, and also quite entertained by the 2 nieces, who were super-talkative and animated that morning! ABF & I headed on to see the Gay Head lighthouse and the clay cliffs of Aquinnah. I admit--as soon as ABF parked that car, I was sawing logs! We (mostly I) took a power nap for a while as the wind whipped around outside the car. We eventually got outside (this was a struggle for me--so sleepy!) and snapped a few photos before running back to the car. SO COLD!!!