My big fat night at Shuckers

Last night, with a $100 gift certificate burning a hole in our wallets, we headed out to Shuckers in Swanton for dinner. You if have never been, you simply must go, their seafood is delish and their prime rib is to die for. It's one of the fancier places Swanton has to offer, and by fancier I mean not fast food and not pajama pants friendly. Honestly, I guess you probably could wear pajama pants, but I like to pretend at least ONE restaurant in Swanton has a no pajama pants policy.

Anyways, the plan was for hubby, the irish twins and I to meet my mother, brother, and his too-cute-for-words girlfriend up there for dinner and merriment. We arrived early, because promptness is next to godliness, and settled into the biggest, furtherest away from other people, table they had. I will totally admit, I am a little bit crabby and hormonal. I am expecting something in the mail (wink,wink) any day now, so I am craving food of all kinds, and soda, which unfortunately I gave up 9 months ago, so beer it is!

I ordered Labatt Lite, hubby ordered Sprite, the boys brought their own flasks, er sippy cups. This is relevant, because while hubby denies it, I swear this is what really happened.

Waitress: What can I get you to drink?

Me: Hi there, I will have Labatt please, thanks so much.

Waitress: Well wide load, lucky for you we have Labatt Lite on special, so for the good of your already too tight jeans, and the little chair you are sitting on, maybe stick to that.

Me: Um, ok, that's fine.

Waitress: P.S. What kind of mother orders beer while they are nursing an infant at the table?! You suck.

Ok, here's the thing. Hubby says this is not how anything went down. And I will totally admit, she really didn't say the last part to me, but I feel like she did, with her eyes. I feel so judged when I order a drink when I have the boys with me. He also reminded me that I don't even breastfeed. Which is also true, I don't physically breastfeed, but I feel like mentally I do, ya know, like mentally nourish them...whatever, it makes sense to me.

Besides the waitress calling me fat (no way did I fabricate that whole exchange in my head), dinner was wonderful. I had the ribeye and shrimp (19.99) and my steak was cooked to medium perfection! You know when you go to trendy chain steak houses, and you order steak, and you ask for steak sauce when they bring the steak out, and they swear up and down with a rehearsed speech that their steak is seasoned SO perfectly, there is NO WAY you would need steak sauce, and then you spend the next 20 minutes trying to flag down your server to tell them that yes, you actually DO need steak sauce??? Well, at Shuckers, you actually don't need it. They season their steak to perfection, it's always juicy, and it's actually (GASP!) cooked on a real grill, not just pretend seared on one.

Hubby is a big seafood guy, so he ordered the snow crab. Ahhh....I remember when we were dating, and we would go out for crab, and he would crack open all my pieces for me, and we would throw our heads back laughing about all the messy, buttery fun we were having.

Those days are gone.

Hubby, you don't get to order crab when you have two small children who keep throwing their toys, bottles and anything else in arms reach all over (yeah, we're THAT family), leaving me to work up a sweat on a constant solo pick up mission, with me eventually having both crying kids on my lap, while you just look at me with your plastic bib and buttery fingers and shrug because unfortunately crab is a two handed meal, and then you remind me how I always stress to keep the boys away from shellfish until after they are three due to potential allergies. Ugh, I hate when he uses my good sense against me, and I am banishing him to chicken fingers from now on.


Bottom line, everyone cleaned their plates, it was beyond wonderful, beer is always on special, seafood is always fresh, their local fish selections are magnificent, we never wanted for anything, I cannot recommend it enough. Eat at Shuckers, can't miss it, it's the one with the giant boat on the roof.