Market Square Day Portsmouth N.H. 2009 – The Food!

 We decided to pay a visit to Strawbery Banke yesterday to check out the gardens and find some heirloom seeds. What was going to be a quick trip turned into quite a little food odessey as we found ourselves in the middle of the annual Portsmouth Market Square Day, a street festival held every year on the second Saturday of June. I hadn’t been to Market Square Day since my undergraduate years at UNH – 20+ years ago- and my oh my how it has grown!

   60,000 to 80,000 people brought summer to the streets, enjoying what was a picture-perfect June day, happy to have great weather after a cold, drizzly week. From one end of Congress St. to the other, the streets were full.

 

Strawbery Banke is down the hill and toward the water – the streets were all closed and there was no choice but to get through the throngs. We had planned on finding someplace to eat while we were in town, and while there are many, many very good restaurants in Portsmouth, I had been secretly hoping we’d end up at my favorite……….   The Muddy River Smokehouse. I looked fondly at the place, snapped a photo and headed for the wonderful smells pouring out of Pleasant St. A food alley for the day, with hardly room to move, there was no question that we were going to eat lunch NOW, and it was going to be fast food. Fast but good, and as we were hustled along we managed to find some delicious eats.

   While Rob headed to the sausages……….. 

I considered some beef………….

And then I saw the chickens………..

 

Now there’s someone who knows how to handle a chicken. It was fascinating just to watch him cut them up, serve and stay so clean! 

 But when I saw the sign for Warren’s Lobster House (just over the bridge in Kittery, Maine)- I made up my mind very quickly……….

 Lobster Roll! And it was great – no fillers, not a lot of mayo – just chunks of fresh Maine lobster on a toasted bun.

 After sharing both the sausage sub and the lobster roll, we had to ask ourselves if we wanted more…………..there was food everywhere………..but did we need to try it all? It was then I noticed a woman walking by holding something that looked like a large dog bowl (it wasn’t), but it was filled with sweet potato fries.

 In fact, there were sweet potato treats all over the place. I especially liked this contraption for cutting them into chips.

We turned those down, as we did the cheesy waffle fries and hamburgers. 

I wanted to try everything from the Shalimar India Restaurant’s food booth…….

but just had to try a crabcake from the coming-soon-to-Portsmouth restaurant The Common Man.

They also had an awesome looking strawberry shortcake…..

If their street food is any indication of how their restaurant will be, I’m looking forward to going there! 

With the sun beating down on us, we really needed something cold to drink, and while lemonade would have been great…..

their line was probably the longest of any vendor. No problem though, we had some delicious Jumpin’ Jack’s Java iced coffee. They were straight out too – and funny. They were talking to themselves they were so busy – thanks for the coffe Jumpin’ Jack’s!!

Also on the scene was a regular street food vendor, Fresh Local. Congrats to them for getting their everyday parking location extended through the summer – people need parking yes, but they also need good food!

We’d made it through, and quickly drank the iced coffe as we headed to our original destination. The streets outside of market square were quiet, but there were still some people celebrating the day outside of the crush of people.

Such a happy day, happy people and great food – I really shouldn’t wait for so many years to go again!