As luck would have it, we were turned away from a different restaurant for being too busy. Element was anout 20 minutes away and appeared to be the only restaurant open with food our party of 4 could eat at due to dietary restrictions that was near our hotel, it was 20 minutes well spent traveling.
We pulled into town, the location reminded me of old America, the go-to restaurant on main street, in a small town. The decor is really cute, the restuarant is massive when you walk in the doors, ot looks much smaller from the outside complete with a full sized bar separated from the dining so there isn't noise overspill.
Our waitress was Kay, super kind, knew the menu inside and out, and helped us make some decisions. Good luck finding something you don't love here. Here is what we ended up ordering:
Appetizers
- Coconut Shrimp - stunning presentation for a common app. It also came with a mini salad under the shrimp and was perfect for sharinf. The sweet and sour sauce was perfect, overall 10/10 for taste, presentation, and size.
- Generals cauliflower - the cauliflower was a hearty portion with plenty of extra generals sauce under the garnish, which is great if you don't love a heavy coating of sauce. You can also save the additional sauce for dipping other items from your meal. 10/10
- Calamari - we're from Rhode Island, Point Judith, RI is known as a premium squid exporter so we always get the calamari wherever we go and judge it critically. The calamari was light and delicious. The coating was a little salty and we're used to having either butter/oil or marinara sauce which wasn't an option with this app, but it was still delicious. A house aioli was drizzled on top, I would recommend adding more, it was excellent. 8.5/10
Entree's
- Chicken wings - I'm a chicken wing coneisseur, check out IFLWings on Instagram, so naturally I ordered the Carribean Jerk wings, which were really a mango habanero. The wings were large, very meaty, and the flavor was wonderful. If you're sensitive to heat, don't get these wings, theymll likely be way too spicy. 8/10
- Caeser salad - since we had all the appa to share, we opted for the small portion caeser, and it was still an above average salad size. The parmesean cheese is as fresh as it gets, large thin chunks of flavor filled cheese, the way a caeser should be. The Polenta croutons were so good, we got a side to go as a late noght snack. It's tough to beat a salad this delicious. 9.5/10
- Enchiladas- perfect as is. Less is more here, there were 3 enchilladas, wonderfully smothered and as flavorful as the rest of the menu. 9.5/10
- Shrimp gumbo - This shrimp gumbo was so good, Forrest Gump would approve of it. The dish was perfectly balanced, had delicious seafood, tasted fresh, wonderfully balanced with a lot of flavors that typically clash, this chef knocked it out if the park. 10/10
Dessert
- Cheesecake - Top 5 cheesecake we've ever had. We ordered a strawberry and a caramel. The caramel was so thick and rich, I can't imagine it was store bought, we were scraping the plate for. The strawberry was equally as good, the strawberries weren't runny so I suspect they aren't frozen and are fresh. They mentioned they make their own desserts so that could be the key to better ingredients. 9.5/10
- Berry cobbler - this was a dessert special for the day, it was rich with blueberries and topped with a good scoop of vanilla ice cream. We almost ate the dish it was in it was so good. 10/10 read more