In This Issue

AK Diamond's
Where the Locals Love to Eat

If you want a great meal at a great price, then you go where the locals go.  For more than a decade, A.K. Diamond’s has been a year-round favorite on Nantucket.  Owners Richard and Jeanne Diamond are veteran restauranteurs and are very much a part of our island community.  If they’re not at AK’s, then chances are they’re coaching local kids at the Delta Fields or at the Boys & Girls Club.

On the first floor, this eatery has a roomy wrap-around bar and spacious pub area with booths and tables.  It’s a lively and comfortable spot for lunch or an afternoon drink, with a welcoming staff and a daily trivia question that often starts a conversation that gets the whole room guessing and laughing.  Newspapers are shared across the bar and televisions strategically placed around the pub are tuned in to news, sports, weather, and during evenings and weekends The Game is always on.  Bartenders Nancy, Brian, Dave, and Evelyn are chatty and hospitable, making a seat at the bar a lot of fun. Be sure to ask them about “shake a day.”

While the warm weather lingers, AK’s brick patio is another great place to sit.  Sheltered from the weather by a green awning and from the road by a yard and a tall hedge, the patio has a half-dozen or so tables with comfy overstuffed furniture where guests can enjoy lunch, cocktails and appetizers, or dinner. 

Lunch at A.K.’s starts at 11:30 am with four pages of choices! They have the island’s only Salad Bar, and they do it just right: chilled plates, crisp greens, nearly two dozen toppings and sides, and six different dressings.  Warm loaves of bread, including house-made foccaccia are ready to be sliced and brought back to your table.  It’s only $5.95 to add the Salad Bar to any appetizer, sandwich, or light entree (it comes free with all full dinner entrees), or you can make a meal of unlimited trips for just $5 more. 

Twelve more specialty salads are available on AK’s All Day Menu, including five versions of Caesar Salad—classic, steak, chicken, lobster, and our favorite: the Cheeseburger Caesar.  Salads featuring salmon, pesto chicken salad, and fruit and nuts round out the selection. Any one of them makes a healthy and filling lunch. 

Thirteen hefty sandwiches are served at AK’s, from a simple and enormous Black Angus Burger to a simply delicious Pesto Chicken Panini.  We love the Reuben Burrito and the Lobster Roll, and their Philly Cheesesteak is the closest thing we’ve found this far north.

All Day Entrees add another fourteen hot and hearty choices for lunch (and for dinner).  Their Fish’n Chips is a New England treat, and the half rack of BBQ Babyback Ribs with their own recipe cranberry barbecue sauce are finger-licking good!  If you’ve had these ribs before, you’ll probably want to come in after 5 pm, when you can order an entire pound-and-a-half rack for dinner. 

	Thai Lettuce Wraps are newly added to the list of salads.  Fun to share around the table, this is a platter of tasty ingredients from which you construct your own lettuce wrap.  We sampled it with beef (you can also have chicken), and had fun tucking julienne carrot, thin slices of cucumber, cilantro, bean sprouts, and rice noodles around the warm slices of steak in the large lettuce leaves. Two dipping sauces are provided: one sweet and one hot.
	We can’t give enough praise to the newest addition to the All Day Entrees: the Grilled BBQ Chicken Flatbread Pizza.  The crust is thin but not brittle, and it’s laden with bite-size chunks of chicken, red onion, their sweet-and-tangy cranberry bbq sauce, and plenty of cheese.  Even as I write this, I’m thinking of having this pizza for lunch.  Everything on the AK’s menu is offered for takeout, and they make it quick and easy with their takeout station by the front door.
	With a different lunch special every day, it’s not uncommon for locals to show up a couple of times a week on the days their favorites are served. Portions at AK’s are huge, so bring your appetite or bring a friend. Appetizers range from traditional and very well done pub fare to classier first course options.  The peppery Zing Wings, the spicy Buffalo Chicken Wings, crisp and juicy Chicken Satay, the Artichoke and Spinach Dip with colorful tortilla chips, and the habit-forming Killer Onion Straws are all very popular finger foods that can start a meal and are ideal for snacking while you watch The Game.
Dinner entrees are added after 5 pm, expanding the menu even further.  As much as we enjoy the pub and bar at AK’s, for dinner we like to be seated in their upstairs dining room.  Larger and even cushier booths were installed this spring, making this upstairs dining room the perfect place to bring family and friends.  Several of the booths can be expanded to accommodate ten adults comfortably.  Plus, if you’re seated upstairs, you’re closer to that fabulous Salad Bar that comes with all full dinner entrees.
	Athough we’re always tempted to start with AK’s Zing Wings or Bacon Cheddar Skins, for dinner in the dining room we usually start with either the Crabcake.  Sauteed till the lightly breaded exterior is golden brown and deliciously crunchy, the large, inside the thick Crabcake is moist and flavorful and full of sweet crab.  This appetizer comes with a side of AK’s crisp, cool coleslaw and, of course, tartar sauce.
	Filled with well-seasoned pork, the crimped little Pot Stickers packets are served around an Asian mix of crisp snow peas, baby corn, water chestnuts, bok choy, and edamame in a luscious pool of hoisin sauce.
	There’s a steakhouse feel to AK Diamond’s, and they do indeed offer some sensational beef entrees.  Their slow-roasted Prime Rib can be ordered in either a 12- or 16-ounce cut and their Peppered Twin Filets of Tenderloin with mushroom demi-glaze, country mashed potatoes, and thin-cut fried onions  can also be ordered as just a single filet. One of our favorite choices is the Mixed Grill of the Day.  The three main elements change nightly, but it usually features two meats and a fish.  During our recent dinner, we greatly enjoyed a portion of their famous BBQ ribs, some marinated grilled siroin tips in mushroom sauce, and a superbly cooked moist Boston scrod in lemon beurre blanc.  With the trio comes country mashed potatoes, snow peas, and buttery spaghetti squash.  It’s always quite a platter, no matter what is featured.
	Chef Matt Sullivan is every bit as talented with seafood as he is with meats.  The Sicilian Swordfish with its Mediterranean mix of tomatoes, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, and capers in a feta cheese vinaigrette is a wonderfully different set of flavors to enhance the meaty swordfish steak.  In less skilled hands this tangy topping might overpower the fish.  Seasoned rice studded with bits of onion, celery, and carrot accompany with more of the delicious spaghetti squash.
	Also very good and very different is Sullivan’s Grilled Salmon with Lo-Mein and Miso. The salmon is expertly grilled and dusted with sesame seeds.  Underneath is a colorful and tasty tangle of lo mein noodles, snow peas, edamame, baby corn, strips of red and yellow pepper, shiitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, and spinach in a garlicky soy-miso broth.
	If you can’t quite decide what entree you want, then we recommend you dine on lobster and shrimp and pasta by ordering the Zebra Striped Lobster Ravioli with Shrimp. This dish is listed under “Pasta and Such,” but we think it belongs under the “Seafood” heading—there’s far more lobster and shrimp in the large shallow bowl than pasta!  The ravioli, which are plump with lobster filling, big chunks of lobster tail and claw, and large whole shrimp are served in a rich yet surprisingly light pesto cream sauce with chopped tomatoes, zucchini, carrot, and summer squash.  Parmesan and mozzarella are shredded overtop.  We scarcely had room for the crunchy cheesy bread served with this, but we loved every bite we took!
	Portions at AK’s are so generous, that you may find yourself too full for dessert.  Consider sharing!  The Apple and Oatmeal Crisp is warm and full of  fall apples, and the Carrot Cake is moist and full of spice.  The Giant Bownie Cheesecake and the Reese’s Peanut Butter Pie are both sinfully good, and the the Monkey in the Middle ice cream sundae is one dessert the locals always order, whether or not there are kids at the table.