Lobster Roll Diaries: An Inland Lobster Roll

Last week we made our first trip out to Walden Pond; too early to swim yet, but we took some visiting friends on a walk around its perimeter, and bought our annual parking pass in preparation for the summer.

On our way home we stopped at Dairy Joy, an ice cream stand we'd recently noticed in the town of Weston, quite close to Concord and Walden Pond. Along with soft-serve ice cream they also offer hamburgers and hot dogs, and, this being New England, fried clams and lobster rolls. Once I saw the menu I was helpless: there was no question of what I would order.

The lobster salad itself was very good, and the bun was grilled with a touch of butter, which is my favorite style of bun preparation. The portion was perhaps a little small compared to some of the lobster rolls I've had on Cape Cod, and lacking in the whole pieces of claw meat you sometimes get, but all in all, a roll with plenty of reason to feel good about itself.


Our veggie contingent appreciated the presence of a veggie burger on the menu, as well as a grilled cheese made with real sandwich bread (unlike the Ipswich Clam Box, where they use a hamburger bun), though the only available cheese was American, which did not score points.

But those details pale in significance when compared to the Dairy Joy's perfect location for a stop after a lazy day of lake-swimming, at a place whose only real disadvantage when compared to the beach, at least for this seafood-loving girl, was the absence of the classic seaside seafood shack. Paradise found.