Cranberry Cottage

Wareham, MA 
(Wednesday, 09/07/16)

(No official web-site.)


Place: Cranberry Cottage Family Restaurant
Location: 246 Marion Road, Wareham, MA; 
phonicular contact: (508) 291-1515
Hours: open from 7:00am, 7 days a week
Meal: (Me) Greek Omelet ~ Feta cheese, black olive, tomato, and spinach, (and per their menu) "home fries 'n toast accompany these creations"; (Sean) New England Benedict ~ homemade (well, "cottage"-made) fish cakes, English muffins, 2 poached eggs, Hollandaise sauce, & home fries; (Mom) raisin toast; and to drink (Me) a cupppa Coffee, (Sean) orange juice (???), and (Mom) a cuppa tea (I can't believe that none of us ordered cranberry juice)


I have eaten at  Cranberry Cottage Family Restaurant a few times in the past (because I can't be sure if I will ever eat at Cranberry Cottage a few more times in the future yet) (see previous 'blog-entry from Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011). This restaurant is probably the most popular local place for noshing breakfastarily; Sunday to Saturday the parking lot is usually full all morning long.

For being just a small "cottage" joint, they do a very decent breakfast and offer many nice selections from which to choose. Some other good ideas (for vegetarians and/or meatetarians alike):

Apple and Sausage Omelet ~ diced fresh apple with diced sausage (now if I ate of the dead, decaying, grounded-up, then stuffed into intestines porcine flesh, I would definitely have wanted to try this one);

Cottage Chili Omelet ~ our homemade (again, "cottage"-made) chili and shredded Cheddar (which, of course, in Cape Codese is "Cheddah");

Great Hill Omelet ~ Great Hill Blue[1] cheese, bacon, and sliced apples (this would have been another one that I would liked to have tried, even without the bacon, Glen);

Philly Cheese Steak ~ cheese, sliced beef, onions, and peppers (however, they don't state whether there is a "Whiz wit" option or not);

Pizza Omelet ~ Marinara sauce and cheeses;

Vitamin K Omelet ~ onion, "the vile weed", spinach, and cheese (with the inclusion of "the vile weed", I can only assume that the "K" stands for "Kill me now, please!"); 

Cottage Skillet ~ home fries topped with scrambled eggs (I think that poached eggs or over-medium eggs would be a better topping, though), bacon (or not), shredded Cheddah cheese, and toast (which I am sure comes on the side and is not also topping the pile);

Fireman's Toast ~ Texas toast topped with eggs, bacon, chili, beans, and Cheddah cheese w/ home fries (I am not so sure that a vegetarian-friendly version of this would be worth a go, though);

and, besides Sean's choice, they offer five other "Benedict Selections".

Additionally, on their "Specials" board over the diner-counter area:

Portuguese Benedict (they didn't list what it entailed, but I can only assume it had some form of linguiça or chouriço in it in place of the standard Canadian bacon-stuff, eh?!);

Bacon, Scallion, + Cheese Omelet (they don't list what is in this one either, but even I can figure this one out);

or

Asparagus, Ham, + Cheese Omelet (which I may have ordered [sans the ham, of course] if Sean had been astute enough to point out the "Specials" board to me before I had already ordered what I did![2]).

However, for a restaurant that has "Cranberry" right in its name, I would have liked to have seen a few more cranberry dishes on the menu. There were only two that I noticed:

Cranberry Stuffed French Toast ~ made with Texas toast (which I had on my previous visit and really enjoyed)

or

Cape Cod Pancakes ~ w/ cranberries and nuts.

I found this last line (or lines, whatever) of their menu pretty funny:

"We reserve the right to add 18% gratuity to tables of 6 or more.
Shared meals will incur a $1.00 per plate charge.
(Does not apply to children under 10)"

Well, of course. Everyone knows that children under 10 are notoriously terrible tippers, anyway. Besides, if you have to wait on a group of more than six under-ten-year olds at a table, you are taking your own sanity in your hands in the first place.

I liked my omelette well enough, but I woulda liked to have seen more Feta in it (but that is my normal complaint with most places: "Mo' Feta, mo' betta!"). Plus, I would have rather seen the inclusion of authentic Kalamata olives instead of the plain ol' (canned) sliced black olives. I also went with the raisin toast (because no one offers craisin toast that I know of).

Sean's choice looked pretty interesting; I always like it when a restaurant offers a different take on Eggs Benedict (see my many, many, many 'blog-entry praises on Dottie's stellar Zucchini Cakes). I mentioned to Sean that the bed of English muffin (which I am writing in the singular ~ because it was just two halves of one ~ but they had in the plural on their menu) seemed a bit of a superfluocity. I would have thought that using the fishcakes as the base would have been a much better option, but Sean pointed out that the fishcakes were a bit too crumbly and really needed the English muffin underneath for support. (It still all looked rather 
unwieldy to me.)

When I asked for some hot sauce, the waitress/server lady-person brought out a bottle of Frank's RedHot® 
Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce and I used some of that on my homefries. I was planning on bringing the three other hot sauces that I had with me on Sunday, but once again Sean forgot to remind me to bring them with us![3]


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: 
(Me) Greek Omelet ~ 6.5
(mo' Feta and real Kalamata olives would easily have added another 0.2 to 0.3 GBS points here);
(Sean) New England Benedict ~ 6.8 
(I did not poll Sean for his actual GBS Rating, but from the way he seemed to enjoy this more than the time he ordered their Irish Benedict ~ which he rated at 6.6 ~ I am assuming that this was a bit higher; besides, I think it's a great inventive take on the plain ol' Eggs Benedict routine);
(Mom) raisin toast ~ 8.5
(again, I really didn't get Mom's GBS input, but knowing her, she would have overrated plain ol' toasted raisin bread thusly)

___________________

1. http://www.greathillblue.com/

(Did anyone else happen to notice that right under their address on their web-site there is actually the link "www.greathillblue.com"? Can you say "Department of Redundancy Department"?)

Marion, Massachusetts is the next town southwestward from Wareham.

http://www.marionma.gov/Pages/index

2. As the youngest in a family of five kids, Sean gets to take the blame for everything and anything. Sorry, those are the rules... I should know, I was the youngest for almost fourteen years before Sean came along.

3. I also forgot to pack sunglasses and a swimsuit for this trip for which I am trying to figure out how to blame on Sean, too.