Crabcakes And A View At The Island House Restaurant In Watchapreague, Virginia
Enjoying a meal at the Island House Restaurant in Watchapreague, Virginia is not merely about the food. Definitely not ! Perched at water’s edge on Finney Creek, a deepwater inlet from the Atlantic Ocean, which languidly winds its way through the emerald green marshes and out to Metompkin Inlet, a trip to the Island House offers a unique little peek into the Seaside on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Watchapreaque itself , now a quiet little residential town with a population of about 300, was the site of the once bustling Hotel Watchapreague, now gone, a well-known resort frequented by all sorts of celebrities in the early 1900’s. Now home to a large private marina with an impressive fleet of charter fishing boats, greater ” downtown” Watchapreague also boasts a town marina, a marine railway and several boat ramps, all catering to those who love the excellent sports fishing and boating nearby.
A Toss Up - Eat Or Launch The Boat ?
Clearly, after a brisk morning out on the water there are going to be some mighty hungry people coming ashore looking for sustenance and who better to provide it than the Island House Restaurant Needless to say, it offers seafood of all kinds but specializes in a fresh catch of the day as well as local crab, oysters and clams. My husband and I especially enjoy their delicious clam chowder and crabcake sandwiches, a perfect lunch harvested from our salty Eastern Shore waters. And what better place to eat it than out on the Island House’s large veranda, watching all the activities going on around us. The restaurant is nestled in between a boat ramp and Watchapreague’s largest marina so there is always lots of interesting stuff happening on all sides. Smaller boats being launched at or being pulled out at the adjacent ramp, little snatches of conversation and laughter floating up, big boats gliding into the marina, people waving and calling out to each other, tides rising and falling, seabirds on the wing trying to catch a little lunch for themselves.
Looking to the horizon, one gets glimpses of Cedar Island, ( part of our off-shore Barrier Island chain, a United Nations Biosphere) and also sightings of what appear to be boats traveling upon the marsh grass itself. They are, of course, moving in the water but because the deep channel winds through large expanses of marsh grass, when boats are landward of Cedar Island, the illusion is created that they are floating upon the grass itself, quite an interesting phenomena . Anyway, there’s always someone or something to see or hear, so definitely lunch at the Island House is quite entertaining as well as tasty.?( http://www.watchapreague.com/theislandhouse.html )