The Marq’E Entertainment Center has fast become the event horizon of my Houston dining experience. Once crossed, I’ve been caught in a gravitational well where a good meal gets sucked into some dark singularity I cannot access. But I finally found a place where lunch managed to escape at the speed faster than light or, in this instance, okay.
The Maine-ly Sandwiches in Marq’E is the last remaining (or reMaine-ly-ng) location of the once popping New England-style restaurant chain. Buddy Charity opened the first in 2013 in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston. The restaurant’s menu is East Coast heavy, with lobster, clams, shrimp and other seafood in abundance—much of which is stuffed inside a warm, buttery roll.
The shopping center is an interesting place to plop a seafood restaurant, though by virtue of simply existing, nearly every restaurant in the Houston area is landlocked, surrounded by a sea of asphalt and concrete. I felt that sensation more keenly at Maine-ly, which features some cozy wooden chairs outside its restaurant space at 7620 Katy Freeway. By the looks of it, Maine-ly was likely trying to evoke that feeling of eating a cozy lobster roll at a waterside shack in Massachusetts or Rhode Island.
Though a body of water was absent, Maine-ly certainly does the shack aesthetic right. The front counter space is cluttered with all sorts of paraphernalia, not including the very large chalk menu along the wall. There’s rows of Miss Vickie’s chips, a life preserver, license plates and other doodads.
I ordered the lobster roll and a small bowl of lobster bisque soup. The bisque was rich and creamy with an almost overwhelming buttery flavor. It tasted definitely of seafood, but it lacked that natural sweetness I would expect a lobster to have.
Moving onto the lobster roll, the bread of the toasted roll was buttery, warm and soft. The chopped lobster inside was only lightly dressed with mayo on the side (mayonnaise and chopped lobster makes it a Maine-style roll, as opposed to the mayo-less and not as well-known Connecticut-style one). I would have dubbed it a miss, but a bottle of malt vinegar helped brighten up the sandwich.
It wasn’t important that Maine-ly stood out on its own. I was just hoping for a meal that could finally bring me out of my Marq’E funk. I’m grateful that it arrived, and hey, with a salt water taffy made by neighboring candy shop Rocket Fizz on the side, too.
Dining and Cooking