Ahhh, lobster roll. One of the greatest food inventions ever made in my opinion. How can you not love chunks of lobster meat in a buttery roll? I've probably hit almost every lobster roll joint in New York from Mary's Fish Camp, to Pearl Oyster Bar, to Ed's Lobster Bar, to Mermaid Inn, to Luke's Lobster, to to Red Hook Lobster Pound, so when my mom was in town and wanted a lobster roll I figured we would just end up at one of those places. But even those places are all great, I was determined to find a new place in the city to try. That's when I came across the Lobster Joint. I knew there was one in Greenpoint (the original one) but then I saw that they had one in the Lower East Side, so we headed over there after a long day at The Cloisters.
Compared to Mary's Fish Camp or Pearl Oyster bar, the place here is very casual. There is no wait service. You order from a board, they give you a number and then they bring you your food. For such a casual place, they have a pretty huge menu. Not only do they have lobster rolls, but they have crab rolls, clam rolls, oyster rolls, crab cake sandwiches, fish filet sandwiches, full on steamed lobster dinners, lobster mac and cheese, and the menu goes on. Another great thing about this place is that the prices are all incredibly reasonable. The thing that I bothers me about nicer seafood sit down restaurants is that their lobster rolls are usually $28+ or if you get a roll from the Red Hook Lobster pound food truck, the roll is pretty small and only comes with a bag of chips for $17 and it doesn't feel like a real meal. But here for $17 you can get a perfectly sized roll (New England style with the mayo or Connecticut style with butter) with coleslaw, a giant full sized pickle and your choice of fries, salad or chips. My mom and I both opted for the New England Style with salad and we started with an order of the clam strips ($8).
The clam strips were totally fine. They were nicely fried and served with a side of tartar sauce and cocktail sauce. It wasn't overly battered and there was a lot of it and we could barely finish it. While we were eating our appetizer I noticed that a guy at the bar was eating a dozen raw oysters and I was super bummed because I didn't see that on their menu and I would have preferred to have started my meal with a couple nice fresh oysters. Oh well. I was here for the lobster roll and it did not disappoint at all. At first it looked a little small, but once I bit into it, I realized that combined with the huge salad it was definitely the right amount of food. While it was New England style with mayo and celery, there wasn't much of either which was totally fine. It really focused on large sweet chunks of lobster from the tail and claw. Delicious. It was paired nicely with a super buttery griddled bun that had the right bread to lobster ratio. Of course I always would like more lobster but for the price point, I thought it was perfect. What I also loved was the salad that came with it was a seriously legit big fresh salad. It was mixed greens, cucumbers and tomatoes with a nice vinaigrette on the side and all looked very fresh and not from a bag. It made me feel slightly healthy in contrast to all the butter and cholesterol I just had.
All in all, I loved the Lobster Joint. It's a great casual, affordable seafood joint and a nice reprieve from all the $30 lobster roll places in the city. It looked like they also had a great happy hour deal of $4 beers or cocktails and $1 Oysters or $4 lobster, crab or fried oyster slides. Yum! Total bill: $51 for 2 people with tip and tax.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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