The Best-Kept Secret

Jan 13, 2009

The best-kept secret in oysters right now has got to be Salt Pond Selects, raised by Dave Roebuck in Point Judith Pond, Rhode Island. I tried them for the first time last June and was blown away. Here’s what I wrote:

“Another heavyweight from Point Judith Pond, Rhode Island (home of Moonstones), Salt Ponds are oyster-lover’s oysters: big, bountiful, and intensely flavorful. If you made a demi-glace with seawater, you’d approximate the concentrated tidepool brine of a Salt Ponds. They are unusually metallic for a virginica, with hints of the iron and petrol flavors found in other Point Judith Pond oysters. These 2.5-year-old oysters are very large, heavy, and strong. The shells—bronze and black-striped on top, a lovely white-green on the bottom—shuck smoothly every time, yielding a rich meat that will take you back to childhood days of lazing around the New England shore.”

I recently tried them again and they were even better–everything I wrote above, but bigger and sweeter. These monster three-year-olds make you want to laugh at the little girlie-oysters served up in so many rawbars. Dave Roebuck has a spiffy new website, so now you can direct-order Salt Pond Selects and use them to amaze and scare your friends.

Posted in New Discoveries