Congratulations! You're certainly going to have a GREAT summer @ the beach this year! You have SOOO many options for dinner. I'll tell you where we love to go and I'm sure others will send you off to their favorite places. Two are right near you for seafood it's Markey's and/or Brown's Lobster Pound AS you know as they're right around the corner from your beach on Rte 286. ALSO we love love love the Sea Glass right in Salisbury @ the beach, it's wonderful.
Put it on your agenda some day for BRUNCH. Make reservations, it's open year round & every one has been going there lately. It's wonderful for Brunch, you can't beat it with a stick. $20? Where can you go for that now for Brunch! It's awesome, set up like a cruise ship. Beautiful floor to ceiling windows there so see if you can get a window seat. Every one tries and seriously most of the time you luck out and get one!
In Hampton there's the Galley Hatch and the Old Salt and also the 401 Tavern that are all quite good in their own various ways. Further up Rte 1 in North Hampton is Ronaldo's for Italian cuisine, it's so good we get it to go a lot of times because it gets so crowded on weekends.
In Portsmouth we absolutely LOVE Jumpin Jay's Fish Cafe located at 150 Congress Street; put this one on your agenda some night, it's a keeper. It's only open at night, it's GREAT, they bring you this little tray with all these sauces so you can try them with your seafood, just an awesome spot for seafood dishes. It's also a very funky little place, so hopefully you time it right and don't get stuck with waiting at all. We usually try to go right when they open so we don't get stuck waiting! Google it so you can see their menu, it's wonderful & one of our favorite places. We even like it more than Legal Seafoods in Boston & Cambridge believe it or not; it's that good.
You have a restaurant right in Seabrook that I've never been to before but it gets high marks from one of my former District Managers from where I worked for years. He loves this spot. Put it on your agenda and go here some night (**before the summer crowd hits it up and you can't get near it**). It's called the Round Rock Restaurant located at 12 Ocean Blvd. in Seabrook along that main stretch of road. It's near that curve in the road where the light is for Rte 286. Up a ways from it on the right hand side if you were heading south toward the lights. Well this manager raves about this place. He doesn't get seafood there but prime rib and loves it there. So check that one out some day. There's also Ron Jillian's restaurant in Hampton located along Rte 1 @ 822 Lafayette Road and if you go in to Facebook at all look for this restaurant in the search box because they have some good COUPONS for this one!
Another place that we love to go to; it's down in Amesbury, a great Italian restaurant (**and as you get used to living on the seacoast you'll find all the short cuts like us!) This particular one is called Ristorante Molise. It's located at 1 Market Square in Amesbury. You'd love this one for atmosphere alone. It's a little expensive, but extremely good, there 1st location is in Wakefield, MA and then they opened their 2nd location in Amesbury, MA. (It's quite good),
http://www.ristorantemolise.com/
In Kittery Point we like to bring a table cloth & a cooler some times in the late afternoon & we hit "Chauncey Creek", it's a no frills type of place, if you like Markey's and/or Brown's in Seabrook? You will love Chauncey Creek for the atmosphere eating lobster, it's like a tradition for us to hit this place at least twice, once when it opens and then before it closes we have to hit the place one last time before the winter months! It's just a fun drive for lobster from the seacoast area and it's not too far for us! You go down the stairs to the dock on the creek where you face woods on the other side of the water. Boats come along & tie up at the dock. Crews all eating lobster on board! You can (and should) bring your own wine/beer, hors d'oevres. You end up eating @ picnic tables with benches, most of them under cover. Queue up to order your lobster, staff picks it out, it's eventually delivered to your table. Hard shelled lobsters are the best. They insist that's all they serve, but it always pays to ask. 1 1/4 lb is too small, go 1 3/4+. Price is reasonable, but not cheap ($14.95/lb this past summer, despite $4.95/lb off the boat), but the place was full both times we were there this past year; even on a rainy (and buggy!) night. To get to Chauncey Creek you take Exit 2 in Maine to the Kittery Traffic Circle. Exit circle after Dairy Queen onto 236 South. 236 South becomes 103 East. Follow for approximately 4.5 miles. After passing Citgo station on right, bear right at next fork onto Chauncey Creek Road. (Look for the road sign on the tree & remember, you bear right).
Eastman's right in Seabrook, is a really fun place for lunch or dinner, it's a pub these days & they have a pier or patio so you can sit outside, it's a good spot later in the afternoon---http://www.eastmansdocks.com/restaurant/
The Ocean Wok at Hampton Beach is GREAT. One of my brothers lived in Vermont for years and he kept telling us about this place and we live right near it and never stepped foot in it for the longest time! Well now we're there whenever we crave Chinese food! We get it to go a lot from there. It's great because it's open year round as we don't want to deal with the traffic in the summer months @ the beach, so as soon as the Seafood Festival is over from then on, we have the Ocean Wok to ourselves again. There's another good spot in Salisbury, you'll have to look for it, it's called Chin Chin. We were there several times, it's wonderful there as well.
We love love LOVE "Tripoli Bakery" their PIZZA and CANNOLI'S are AWESOME. We're soo psyched they are there now. For years we had to either go to the North End OR down to Methuen's Piros Bakery if we wanted anything GOOD! Now we have Tripoli's and to think...they're open year round!!!!
There's also a good Italian restaurant called "Capri's" across from the Sea Glass in Salisbury! Look for it, it's good, same owners as the Sea Glass we're hearing! Whoever the owner is certainly has the right idea, these two spots are GEMS in my book! You will like it there on **Wednesday nights**, they have Pasta Night for $9.99, AND there salad bar is awesome!
Do you like Lebanese cuisine? Well if so, you would love Martha's Restaurant for lunch, it's located at 153 Lafayette Road in Hampton Falls along Rte 1. GO there some day for lunch. It's a little tiny place & it's SOO amazing & SOO awesome! Their baklava is hands down the best ever. We never noticed the place before and finally went in a few weeks ago after a friend highly recommended it to me. The owners are SO sweet, we chatted the whole time! I brought a bottle of wine with us. You might want to bring your own wine glasses though (-=
Don't miss the grape leaves, HUMUS, lamb kabob and like I said the Baklava is postively amazing!
This time I'm really thru, I think you have plenty to get you going! I'm sure people will add to it, I'm just getting you started with some good spots we really like...
Have a great time this summer exploring the seacoast!