The Juice

"Crazy-stupid good" - this is the phrase I've been using this summer for food which, in a snootier time, I might have called "sublime". I've run into a few examples of crazy-stupid good food this summer, and last night there were a few at the Juice, in Wellfleet.

I've been to the Juice several times, both last summer and this summer, and every meal I've had there has been great - and several items on the menu are most certainly crazy-stupid good (the clam fritters for absolute sure - they're purt-near perfect). Last night, I tried three things I hadn't had there before:
oysters in the rough (a half dozen raw oysters)
spinach & mushroom quesadillas
chocolate ganache tort

The oysters are local, Wellfleet oysters, and are served with a housemade cocktail sauce which was tasty. The really cool thing about the dish was the little leaf of fresh cilantro added on each oyster. Damn, that really made things great! Also, the price practically can't be beat - $9.95 for a half-dozen oysters, where most restaurants on the Cape charge *at least* $2.00 an oyster.

The oysters made a nice appetizer, and then came the quesadillas - holey schmoley, where have these been all my life?!?!?! How have I skipped over them on the menu all the other times I ate there?!??! Every bite brought a smile to my face. Really tasty, meaty mushrooms, and the cheese they use was gorgonzola, so there's a nice blue-cheese bite to it (though not super-strong). Definitely a new fave dish for me, and something to go into the rotation of meals to eat there.

While the quesadillas brought a smile to my face with every bite, the chocolate ganache made me positively giddy - I swear, I actually giggled as I was eating this, it was so damn good.

There are many fine restaurants to choose from in Wellfleet - there's Mac's Shack, the Wicked Oyster, Sol, to name a few - just be sure to keep the Juice on your list of possibilities when you're there - try anything on the menu - it's all good, and a whole lot of it is crazy-stupid good.

update (later Sunday, around 2pm): I forgot to mention a couple of things about the Juice.

First of all, the building housing the restaurant - let's just say it looks as if there's a right angle in the place, I think it just might be a mistake.

Second - if you're hippy-phobic, don't let the look and name of the place scare you - sure they have funky pizzas and great smoothies and the staff is filled with surfers and hula hoopers (seriously - at least a couple of waitresses are members of a hula hoop group - look for them around town and at this year's WOMR "Boogie By the Bay")

Third - they have Rain organic vodka - I don't like it as much as my fave vodka of all time, Tito's, but it's pretty darn good. Also, when beets are in season (we're getting into beet season now, I think), they make this really amazing beet martini with local beets and the Rain vodka.