The Little Mermaid; One of the Best Restaurants in Homer
The last time we were in Homer, we tried to get into The Mermaid, which was near the Driftwood Inn, but it was full, and worse – fully reserved. We had not made reservations. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake this year, but as they do, things had changed, The Mermaid was under new management and the people who had created it’s huge success were at another restaurant, The Little Mermaid. So we made a reservation at The Little Mermaid and hoped for the best.
Oh my.
It is about as opposite to Captain Patties as can be. While both emphasize great fresh seafood, The Little Mermaid is more experimental.
We were really glad we had made reservations. There is a bar, very small, and then there are like four booths and maybe three more bar stools at a counter in the room to the right.
This is the exterior:
This is the blackboard, posted to the left as you enter, actually in the bar area which overlooks the harbor:
And this is a view into the kitchen:
A view of the interior where the booths are:
Our appetizer, Halibut Balls with Teriyaki Sauce. This was absolutely delicious, and I have never seen halibut presented this way before:
Now the sad part. When our meals came, I forgot to take any more photos. AdventureMan had Kodiak Scallops, which were very simple and absolutely delicious. I had a Brazilian Stone Bowl, a big (stone) bowl of Alaskan seafood in a coconut milk liquid, boiling hot and it stayed hot; it was novel and unforgettable and delicious. As we were waiting for our meals, the waitress came and asked me if we could wait just a couple minutes more; they had a fresh batch of mussels in and would like to throw a few into my dish, would I mind waiting?
We had seen the man walk from the harbor into the restaurant, carrying a big bag of freshly caught mussels. Of course I would wait!
For me, this was one of our best meals of the trip, and if you go to Homer, be sure to make a reservation at The Little Mermaid, out on Homer Spit. This is also where the locals go; it is a very popular place, deservedly.
The Pratt Museum: A Gem in Homer, AK
It’s our last day in Homer, and we are going to the Pratt Museum
The Pratt Museum is a WOW. It is beautiful, for one thing, all woods and stone, a beautifully crafted, cared for museum. We happened in at a relatively quiet time and had time to talk with the volunteer at the desk, who sold me several raffle tickets for this year’s quilts. I really want to win it; it has blueberries all over it. I suppose I could do a blueberry quilt, but this one is already done!
They also have a super gift shop, with lots of gift ideas, many locally produced by local artists. You know how it is with tourists, there are a lot of places that sell schlock. When you want a step up, go to a museum gift shop. I used to buy my blank cards at the Tarek Rajab museum in Kuwait, beautiful cards with silver bedouin and Arabic jewelry, or doors of old Kuwait, old Oman, etc. Lovely, artistic cards.
This is one of the permanent exhibit quilts. It may have been on the bottom floor, with the marine exhibits. Things got crazy after our quiet visit with the volunteer; a large group of students came in, maybe eighth grade, with all the chaos and laughter kids that age engender. We hurried ahead of them to the exhibits, and there are a LOT of exhibits.
This was a map of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, from which Alaska is still recovering. We learned something interesting, and that is that as horrible as the spill has been for the environment, it put Alaska on the map, raised awareness, and that is when the tourists really started pouring in, maybe like to see the splendors of Alaska before they are destroyed by oil spills or climate change.
These are some of the Alaska birds you can see on the Kenai peninsula, including, I think, a puffin 🙂
The Pratt has so many clever and original exhibits. I loved the film presentation on how the First Nation peoples catch, smoke and store salmon. If there is ever a zombie apocolypse and I have to survive, now I know how to prepare and keep salmon over long stretches of time by smoking it and drying it in strips. And protecting it from bears, who love salmon.
This presentation was like a table, but the movie was on the table. There were foods, and it was like we were the people eating. Someone would pass a dish and explain a little about what it was, like whale blubber or seaweed something. As much as I like to try new things, some of what they had on the table was stuff I would cut into very tiny pieces and push around the plate so it looked like I had tried some but I didn’t. I loved the presentation; so interactive.
Although there were a lot of really good exhibits, we sort of hurried through once the crowd arrived. We did spend a good amount of time in the garden outside, where I laughed at myself. I learned a lot about myself this trip, why I love the colors I love (mostly greens – blues – purples and why I don’t like a lot of yellow or red in a garden. Almost everything in this garden was blue -purple – fuchsia with just a smattering of tiny yellow flowers, not a speck of red, except muted in some of the foliage, which was mostly shades of green. AdventureMan laughed, too, as it is the bane of his gardening existence that I want the bright red Turk’s Heads and the big yellow Cassia where I can’t see them.
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