Spectacular view and a taste of the sea

Nostalgic family dining on the beach lends itself to tradition

Ray's Seafood
1677 Ocean Boulevard, Rye, N.H.
603-436-2280
raysseafoodrestaurant.com
Hours: Monday and Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 9 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 8 p.m.
Major credit cards accepted
Accessible to the handicapped

Ray's Seafood bills itself as "a family-style restaurant with the best views around," and we can safely say after our recent visit that this is truth in advertising.

At age 40, Ray's is one of the oldest eateries on New Hampshire's short seacoast, and for many who come here each year to vacation, a visit is as much a summer tradition as buying fried dough on Hampton Beach or a stroll through Joe's Playland in Salisbury.

We know people who won't go home from the beach until they've had a mess of steamed clams at Ray's. And as for the view, it is spectacular - more from the second-floor dining room, where the seawall doesn't obscure your view of the chilly Atlantic, as it does on the first. On a good day you can see the Isles of Shoals, and if you sit in the bar you can watch boats come and go from Rye Harbor.

Ray's isn't upscale, but it's got all you want when it comes to nostalgia beach dining. There's the requisite lobster sign out front, colorful buoys and distressed lobster traps. Your steamers come in foam containers; your forks are plastic, and plates are paper. It's nautical kitsch in the good sense of the word.

The food is also reliably New Hampshire seacoast in its fresh-from-the-ocean simplicity.

On our recent adventure, shortly after the season opening, a big group of us took refuge at Ray's from the chilly ocean breeze and the roar of hungry stomachs.

The hot clam chowder ($4 for a cup) did wonders to warm up several of us. It had a nice thin broth, the way we like it, and was heavy on the onion taste - which some of us thought was great and a few others felt was a tad outside of the New England chowder tradition.

But we all agreed on the splendor of the clam fritters ($3). These were outstanding, golden orbs of fried batter and fresh clams - a lot like the conch fritters we've enjoyed in the Bahamas.

They tasted especially good with our cold bottles of Amstel Light ($3.50).

We also liked our steamer appetizer ($13). The yummy little bivalves were ocean-fresh, sweet, and there wasn't a single closed shell in the bunch. They tasted like summer itself.

One really nice thing about Ray's is that there are as many baked-fish dinners as fried-fish choices on the menu. One of us chose the baked seafood plate ($22), which came with a generous portion of scallops, haddock, baby shrimp, and lobster. Also included were cole slaw and a choice of fries or baked potato, although we would have preferred it with fewer bread crumbs or none at all. We also think the baked potato was nuked, not baked. It was a little on the limp side.

Another among us ordered a small lobster pie ($13) in a sherry Newburg-kind of sauce nestled between pie crusts. The flavor was all right, but the lobster had somewhat of a mushy consistency.

But there were no complaints about our side order of onion rings ($5), which were bracelet-sized golden holes of sweet and scrumptious.

There was also no complaint about the lobster roll ($13), which was brimming with the sweet crustacean meat and not too much mayo.

But it has to be said that our service was excruciatingly slow on this day. One of our party didn't get her fried clam dinner ($18) until everyone else had finished the entrees. Our waitress apologized several times, and we could see for ourselves from our seats that it was a kitchen issue and not a server problem.

In fact, the order came so late that the person who ordered it had to take most of it home - and fried clams are not really the kind of thing that take well to reheating. We feel her meal should have been comped or at least a free drink or dessert offered.

That didn't happen, but we did all share a slice of peanut butter pie ($3.50), which was as rich and creamy as we hoped it would be.

Would we go back to Ray's again? Absolutely. The view is spectacular, the food is good, and it's just so very, very New Hampshire.

TOM LONG