State seafood pilgrimage: The best of Rhode Island

Larry Olmsted | Special for USA TODAY

The scene: Coastal New England is dotted with seafood shacks and eateries of every description, and no visit is complete without the region's famous fresh lobster, clams and chowder. But while you can find the staples like lobster rolls and oysters on the half shell everywhere, there are surprising hyper-local specialties and notable regional differences between neighboring states separated by just a few miles. Maine is best known for its lobster, in the shell and in the hot dog bun; Connecticut created the now-legendary white clam pizza; and Massachusetts proudly invented the fried clam on Boston's North Shore.

But when it comes to regionalized New England seafood, no state stands alone like Rhode Island, which has its own unique and eponymous form of clam chowder, claims the stuffed clam -- or stuffie in Rhody-speak -- as its own invention, uses hot peppers to spice up Rhode Island-style calamari, and loves clam cakes, largely overlooked in the rest of the region. These four dishes form the basis of must-try Rhode Island seafood specialties, and after asking numerous locals where to find the best, I got little but partisan disagreement.

However, a couple of names kept coming up, which led me to the Matunuck Oyster Bar, on the southeastern-most tip of the state near the Connecticut border; the full service Flo's Clam Shack in Middleton, abutting tourist-mad Newport; and the lesser-known but atmospheric Flo's Drive-In in Portsmouth. All three are on the southern coast, and Matunuck is the most full-service restaurant, with indoor dining, table service and full raw bar, but also ample outdoor seating and full bar overlooking the surf. It sits right along the road on a narrow spit of land with water on both sides, and it is so popular that the valet parking lot stretches down the coastline.

The Newport Flo's looks like a classic sea captain's house just off ultra-popular Easton's beach, which connects Newport and Middleton. It has outdoor seating plus indoor dining with oyster bar and kitschy décor with life vests and fishing rods hanging from the ceiling. There is almost always a line to get in, from a tiny back parking lot that usually overflows.

The simplest and easiest to visit of the three is Flo's Drive-In, a lower-key sibling of Flo's Clam Shack. A classic coastal joint, it is one simple small building with windows for ordering and picking up, picnic tables for dining, everything served in styrofoam clamshell containers, plastic sauce cups and brown paper bags, with a limited menu and little else - except the feel of New England ocean escapism at its best. They even hand out lobster-shaped buzzers to let you know when your food, cooked to order, is ready. Since 1936 this has been the site of the first Flo's, originally a chicken coop, twice destroyed by hurricanes and last rebuilt in 1991.

Reason to visit: Flo's clam cakes, Matunuck Oyster Bar's R.I.-style calamari

The food: Rhode Island clam chowder is quite distinct from both of its better known rivals, New England (white, thick, creamy and potato-laden) and Manhattan (red, thin, tomato-infused broth). It is the most straightforward take on the genre, clear broth (usually made with at least some clam juice) with minimal filling of red skin potato chunks, celery and clams. Some places add a bit of diced bacon. The emphasis is on the bivalves themselves and while it's thin, between the clams and clam broth, it packs in briny clam flavor, salty and tasting of the ocean. It's also one of those things appreciated more if you grew up with it -- if you like clams, it is worth trying for the novelty, but frankly, it is hard to imagine loving this soup. Flo's does a thicker style with more potato cut into bigger cubes, and while still brothy, this thickens it a bit. I preferred the purity of Matunuck's version more, with its pronounced clam taste, though the small added pieces of bacon made it even saltier.

Since last year, calamari has been the official "state appetizer," but not all squid is Rhode Island-style calamari. In the rest of the country, fried calamari is pretty consistent, served plain with cocktail sauce on the side. In the Ocean State they toss it with slices of pickled hot peppers, banana, cherry or pepperoncini (or a combo), and usually some of the vinegar they came in, sometimes made a bit creamier with the addition of garlic butter. The bite of the peppers and the tang of vinegar go perfectly with the oily fried squid, and when this dish is good, it is great, so much so that you may never want to eat fried calamari any other way. Matunuck does a fancified version that still focuses on very tasty and fresh squid, an ample serving tossed with just a few slices of hot pepper but also with a delicious, fresh and lemony aioli and baby arugula leaves. The result is still mainly excellent fried squid, but the flavor is amplified by the acidity of the dressing and nicely offset by the bite of the peppers and pepperiness of the lettuce. Flo's takes a completely different approach, serving a basic order of fried calamari with a chopped mix of hot peppers in a plastic container on the side to serve yourself. No matter how much I added it didn't integrate well, and for this regional staple, Matunuck won hands down.

The advantage quickly swung back to Flo's when it came to clam cakes. These are basically clam-studded fritters of dough, and like any fritter, the challenge is balancing the taste of the featured ingredient with the batter. I've had a fair amount of clam cakes, and most have disappointed, often doughy, oily and tasteless. But not at Flo's, where I had the best clam cakes of my life, and the single most standout thing on this coastal trip. They were fresh fried and doughy but light, studded with some corn kernels as well as clam, which gave them just a bit of sweetness – like a seafood version of Italian zeppoli or doughnuts. Hot, fluffy and balanced, I couldn't stop eating them. No wonder both people in line ahead of me were there just to take out clam cakes, a dozen each – a big order – but this is what Flo's is justifiably famous for. Their combo meal special is a cup of R.I. chowder and three clam cakes, a good local sampling.

The only real disappointment of the trip was the stuffies, I asked my friend Amy, a food-loving Providence native, where to go and she said simply "My house. You have to make them yourself. I've never had a good stuffie in a restaurant." The ones at Matunuck were big and lived up to their name in that they were certainly stuffed. Each was chock-full of small bread cubes, like bagged Pepperidge Farm mix for turkey, with far too much breading for the clam. The ones served at Flo's looked more promising and homey, with two assembled into a sort of closed clam held together with a rubber band. But inside was a stuffing paste, a smooth amalgam of breading and barely discernible clam meat, with no chunks. Because they had some bits of jalapeño and nice spices, the stuffing was actually quite flavorful, but not clam-flavored, and the consistency of mashed potatoes.

Flo's is well worth a visit for its signature clam cakes, and I'd definitely go back to Matunuck for its very fresh take on the state's unique calamari (while I was exploring these four local specialties, Matunuck Oyster Bar is also acclaimed for its oysters, and operates its own 7-acre aquaculture oyster farm in nearby Potter Pond, as well as its own vegetable farm supplying the delicious baby arugula).

Pilgrimage-worthy?: Yes, collectively because these unique Rhode Island specialties are just hard to find anyplace else.

Rating: Yum! (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)

Price: $$ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)

Details: Matunuck Oyster Bar, 629 Succotash Road, Matunuck, 401-783-4202, rhodyoysters.com; Flo's Clam Shack, 4 Wave Ave., Middletown, 401-847-8141, flosclamshacks.com; Flo's Drive-In, Park Avenue, Island Beach Park, Portsmouth.

Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an e-mail at travel@usatoday.com. Some of the venues reviewed by this column provided complimentary services.