For this past Labor Day weekend we went out to visit friends in Southampton, NY.  Yes, the “Hamptons”.  I’d never been out there.  The weekend retreats from the city to either the country or the beach were never for  me.  I really don’t have any excuse.  Both the country and the beach are beautiful.  I’ve mostly enjoyed spending my money on local foodie events here in the city.  Getting out of town however is proving to be amazing.  Renting a Zipcar is easy and affordable even on a service industry paycheck and  you can quickly escape up to the Hudson valley almost year round to places like the Storm King Art Center (where I proposed to my fiancée last June).

Southampton is nothing like I expected.  Truthfully I thought it would be beach houses and Bentley’s.   I discovered that the real flash starts farther east in East Hampton and north in Sag Harbor.  The only word to describe Southampton is rustic.  Sure there are private beaches were you see the $90k+ but there are also public beaches that are very nice.  Wind swept dunes and the Atlantic.  The town appears to have some sort of ordinance in place were most of the residential roads are not fully paved.  Not sidewalks and gutters like a suburb and most driveways are loose stones.  The houses themselves are various shapes and sizes.  The place we stayed in is an old summer rental were the couple is renting it year round for a job actually in Southampton.  Like most in the area, it shows the signs of many summer rentals.  As if it was the scene for everything from Summer Rental all the way up to the Real Worlds.

Like most summer destinations there are those that live there year round.  These locals I’m sure want nothing more than the last long weekend of summer to be over with so that they may be able to return to their off-season lives.  To the degree that when I was in a Starbucks (rustic it may be but there was at least one) there was a local expressing to a barista “After this weekend the town will be ours again”.  Really?  Do you now want our money that bad?  I could go somewhere else.  I can’t speak for the government of Southampton but without tourism dollars flowing into the city the taxes would most likely go up.  This sets me up for the fine specimen you see in my photo treatment on this page, “What A Southampton Patriot Wears”.   A priceless moment that I will cherish forever.  Standing alongside County Road 80 and Canoe Place Rd, outside of Brewster’s Seafood Market was this all-American hero.  He thinks that deporting illegals is the right message to be showing to a bunch of tourists going to the beach in the Hamptons.  I don’t run in the street team circuit but this guy might consider changing venues.  Perhaps this American hero should go to a more legislative location.  Perhaps down town NYC or even Albany?  Shucks, even outside the town courthouse which I’m sure he’s been locked up in more than once.  But just get a look at his costume.  Classic.

There was a main drag center of town that had some staple haunts.  A jam packed coffee shop with the cliché baked goods across the street from the J Crew Beach store.  But there were also two jems that were really impressive.  Schmidts Produce, a small grocery store with a sandwich shop, meat counter and more; and Cor J Seafood.  While Schmidts was a welcome sign.  A familiar offering to places in Manhattan like Westside Market.  Cor J was a complete delight.  We had assumed that since we were on the Atlantic there would of course be some great seafood.  We didn’t want to sit down in some restaurant. We like to cook.  Mostly importantly in this instance–grill.

Cor J is on the water flanked by boats.  Just before you cross over a long bridge that takes you out to the dune beaches.  The ring of beaches that stretches to from Montauk through Fire Island.  Upon entering you are literally in the kitchen of the market.  Fish are being filleted directly in front of you and it feels more like you are in an amusement park.  You are pressed up against the wall and people are filleting a fish once second then turning around and taking your order the next.  All the while yelling at people to close the door because like I said you are in the kitchen.  A kitchen kept as cold as a refrigerator.

We visited Cor J twice.  One night we picked up red snappers, oysters and clams.  The next night a amazing 9 lb. striped bass and shrimp.  Everything was under $200.00.  The quality of everything was amazing.  I could  not imagine eating anything there besides seafood.  It’s worth the trip out just for that alone.  With prices as low as they are I can stand a little local attitude and patriotism.

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And there wasn’t one person on the beach with any tattoos besides me.  There is just something unnerving about that.

Unrelated trivia:  Did you know that there is this huge castle in Brooklyn?  The 23rd Regiment Armory.  On Atlantic and Bedford.  Built from 1891-1895 and was used during the Civil War.  More information at Forgotten-NY.  We passed it on the way home.

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