Quincy has quite a variety of restaurants these days; indeed, this southern neighbor of Boston has nearly every kind of ethnic cuisine imaginable (including Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Mexican, Japanese, Middle Eastern, and Brazilian), as well as a number of more traditional, old-school places, including Grumpy White's, a family-friendly dining spot on Sea Street. Grumpy White's is located just east of Quincy Center on a road that splits into two dead ends at Hough's Neck and Germantown respectively, so relatively little traffic goes by the restaurant, making it literally a hidden spot of sorts. But locals tend to keep this place hopping, and for good reason; some of the comfort food here ranks among the best on the South Shore.
Grumpy White's sits in a standalone building that has a decent amount of room inside. The main dining room features a number of brown vinyl booths for both large and small groups along with a bar toward the back, and a slightly smaller dining area wraps around the front of the place with views of the street. A relatively new feature is an outdoor deck/porch area that is mostly behind and along the side of the main dining room, and which faces the parking lot rather than the street so it is relatively quiet. Diners have a lot to choose from here, including some truly special comfort food dishes. The garlic bread, for instance, is rich and buttery, while the boneless fried chicken dinner is a real favorite here, with tasty pieces of breaded white meat chicken served along with corn, mashed potatoes, and gravy. The buffalo chicken sandwich has the same high-quality chicken as the regular boneless fried chicken, and it comes with a particularly good sauce that has more in the way of flavor than heat, while the fish sandwich is flaky, tender, and quite large. Chicken lovers can also opt for a chicken parm dish with rotini pasta, and this dish is so large that you could get two or maybe even three meals out of it. The grilled burgers at Grumpy White's--including the belly-busting "Grumpy Quad," which features four patties--have a very high fat content, making them juicy and delicious. If you don't want to feel quite as full, the double burger or triple burger should be more than enough for the vast majority of people, though Grumpy White's has also posted in the past about a "20 stack of burgers and cheese," and perhaps the less said about this, the better. And the foot-long hot dog is, in this writer's opinion, one of the tastiest franks in the Boston area, and you can get two of them for around $10 if you're really hungry. Other favorites at Grumpy White's (depending on the specials offered and the season) include the meaty pork chops, zesty-tasting steak tips, a lobster roll, baked stuffed scallops, prime rib, and baked macaroni and cheese, the latter of which you can get with fish cakes.
There is a lot to like about Grumpy White's. The food is satisfying, prices are reasonable, parking is plentiful, and service is mostly decent. Grumpy's might not be the most exotic restaurant in Quincy, but it is certainly a place worth looking at, especially if you like basic, simple fare in a family-friendly environment.
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