Specialists are better than generalists, whether you're talking about restaurants, doctors or IT professionals. Some restaurants try to please everybody all the time, resulting in bloated menus that make it difficult for the kitchen to put out the best food possible. Not Monstah Lobstah.
Don't get me wrong, Monstah Lobstah doesn't dish up food that will knock your socks off, but its limited menu is sharply focused on just a few things that it churns out admirably: Fried scallops, shrimp, haddock and clams; steamers and snow crab; and, of course, lobster, either tucked into a roll or served whole. Instead of limited, think of it as no frills.
In that respect, the restaurant matches the food. Wood abounds, from the booths to the chairs to the old-fashioned tables covered with picnic tablecloths and adorned with rolls of paper towels and bottles of aging Tabasco. Need a drink? Order a can of coke or grab a draft beer — on the house, since the place runs without a liquor license.
Clams are a New England delicacy that get little play in Florida outside of places like this, but there are basically two ways to eat them — steamed or fried. Don't be afraid of the fried version, the way they do it here is a vast improvement over the chewy clam strips you ate as a kid. At Monstah, the clams are whole-belly, soft shell monsters, plump and juicy. When covered in flaky breading, it's almost like eating fried oysters, the flavor of the bivalve cutting trough the grease and salt with every bite. The steamed version is packed with so much clam flavor, you might wish for a little of the fry to add some contrast.
Lobsters at Monstah are steamed until the shells are a vivid red, ready to be ripped open and consumed quickly with a dredge in butter. Too, quickly, sometimes. The lobsters are market priced, but expect the smaller 1.5 pound or so buggers to be in the low $20s. And let's be honest, a pound and a half of lobster is more an appetizer than a meal.
You can also get your lobster fix through Monstah's tasty lobster roll, although that is a much different beast than what you'll find in a whole lobster. Monstah stuffs its crisply toasted fresh rolls with a salad that has good flavor, but few hunks of serious meat. A scoop of that same salad is what you'll find on the restaurant's lobster salad, along with some desultory tomatoes and lettuce.
For a lobster meat fix without the work of cracking shells, better to order Monstah's signature U Conn roll, essentially a small lobster removed from the shell, dipped in butter and slapped on a bun. Simple, but effective.
Monstah also serves capable fried shrimp and scallops, but neither hold the same appeal as the intense fried whole-belly clams. Fried haddock fills a need, but seems more of a sop to folks who don't want shellfish, while the side dishes — french fries, corn, baked potatoes and hush puppies — are little more than an occasional distraction from the seafood.
Monstah Lobstah almost self-consciously rejects frills, an attitude that matches owner Allen Berube, a transplanted Mainer who made a name for himself as a competitor in Mixed Martial Arts tournaments. He was known for a high-intensity, confrontational style in and out of the ring, but that's calmed in recent years.
Now he's more in step with his restaurant, straightforward and workmanlike, an attitude that might fit martial arts training regimens, but is rarely applied to lobster outside of Maine or Massachusetts. But New Englanders like Berube have the right attitude when it comes to this delicious sea bug that's become a symbol for high-end cuisine over the last hundred years. Lobster is best when prepared simply and eaten more for its own rich flavor than for the gratification of higher culinary ambitions.
Monstah Lobstah doesn't reach for those higher culinary aspirations, which is exactly why real seafood aficionados should love the place.
This article appears in May 12-18, 2011.