Yeah, yeah, we’ve been taking a lot of trips lately.  But summer is prime traveling season, especially if you want a beach vacation,  so we recently decided to rent a car and go somewhere that’s not too far but was a new place for us to explore:  Ocean City, Maryland.  Ocean City is a classic summer town, with its long boardwalk, miles of beach, tons of hotels and motels, and plenty of people who flock there between June and September each year.  And if you do your research, there’s also plenty of interesting places to get great local food.  We hunted out some of these spots and we want to show you the delicious things we got our hands on there – but as a word of caution, we will show some images of meat here.

Beach towns are pretty well-known for their snack food – fun things you can eat while you park yourself on the sand or stroll up and down the boardwalk – and there’s plenty of good places where you can score some delicious treats.  For example, Thrasher’s, which has been in Ocean City for over 90 years, sells one thing and one thing only:  buckets of fries that come hot right out of the fryer.  There’s three locations around the Boardwalk, so we got ourselves some from the stand all the way down at the Ocean City pier.

Also on the boardwalk (as well as in West Ocean City) is Fisher’s, which scoops up tubs of flavored popcorn to take home with you as an edible souvenir.  We got some cheddar popcorn (on the left), but since we were visiting Maryland we also couldn’t pass up the chance to try their Old Bay popcorn too (on the right).

Ice cream is also a beach visit staple, and there’s two local places that we got to try.  If you’re in the mood for soft serve, check out Dumser’s Dairyland, which has seven stands across Ocean City.  We went to one of the locations on the boardwalk and got ourselves a vanilla and orange twist cone to share.

But if you’re looking for hard ice cream, you can stop at Justine’s, up at the the north end of Ocean City.  We each got a sundae there:  Cyril’s (on the left) was made with cookies and cream, peanuts, and hot fudge, while Miriam had espresso chip with caramel.

There’s some other great sweet treats to find in Ocean City – like donuts from Fractured Prune, which has set up shop in a bunch of different beach towns across Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.  One of the unique things they do is let you customize your own donuts, or you can order off their menu of donut varieties.  Here’s what we got:  at the bottom is their trail mix donut, with a banana glaze, coconut flakes, chocolate sprinkles, and peanuts; on the top right is a sundae donut, covered in a honey glaze, peanuts, chocolate chips, and extra coconut; and on the top left is a donut Miriam designed, with mint glaze and crushed Oreos.

Or if you’re fascinated by the edible cookie dough trend, there’s also a small local chain called Dodo where you can get scoops of dough served up to you.  We tried some of the peanut butter dough, studded with mini Reese’s Pieces – you can also get all kinds of different toppings on your dough, but we just got a plain scoop.

At some point in time you’re probably going to be looking for something more substantial to eat in Ocean City, so we’ve got you covered there too!  One afternoon we stopped by Rosenfeld’s, which has three locations in Maryland and Delaware.  They’re a Jewish deli that’s known for their reubens, and luckily for Miriam they have a meatless version – the Veg-Jewtarian – stacked with cheddar, Swiss and Muenster cheeses, tomato, coleslaw, and Russian dressing, all on grilled challah bread.

Cyril tried their more traditional corned beef reuben, with sauerkraut, Russian dressing and melted Swiss on a marbled rye bread.

Then for dinner one night we decided to stop into Liquid Assets, which is a hybrid restaurant-bar-cheese shop-wine and liquor store.  Since they have such a wide selection of cheeses on offer, we got ourselves a cheese board to start – we chose their Pecorino Grand Cru (on the left), their 30 month aged Comte (in the middle), and the Point Reyes blue cheese (hiding in the back right).

Then Miriam decided to try their vegan house made pasta, with a pepper, garlic and cashew cream sauce, topped with crumbled kale chips.

And Cyril had the pork chops, in a bourbon barbecue glaze with a homemade potato and squash salad on the side.

If you’re more interested in breakfast, we also stopped at Happy Jack Pancake House – and naturally, we tried some of their pancakes.  Miriam was recommended the cinnamon bun pancakes, stuffed with cinnamon chips and topped with a vanilla cream cheese icing.

Meanwhile, Cyril tried one of their Ultimate Pancakes:  the Elvis, made with peanut butter chips inside and sliced banana, bacon, and a peanut butter drizzle on top.

And finally, it wouldn’t be a beach trip without a stop for seafood (at least for Cyril).  When we asked around we heard that OCM Crabs was one of the best places in town, so we headed there and Cyril got to crack into a dozen crabs, dusted with Old Bay.

Thankfully there were also some sides for Miriam to eat:  corn on the cob, mac and cheese, and hush puppies.

All in all, we really enjoyed the great variety of food we got to try in Ocean City.  There were plenty of things to snack on, some treats to satisfy our sweet tooth, and places where you can get a good sandwich or a sit-down meal.  If we had to pick, we’d say our favorite place was probably Rosenfeld’s, because it was unexpected (who’d ever guess that you’d find a Jewish deli in a Maryland beach town?), it was vegetarian-friendly, and their reubens were top notch.  But really, all the things we tried were interesting and tasty, and it just goes to show how many great local spots you can find anywhere you go.