I really dug the vibe of Littleneck when I walked in around 6pm and even better was the fact that it was happy hour for another hour! They had $1 oysters so Anuja and I immediately ordered a dozen oysters to start. The menu isn't huge but it has a lot of great seafood shack staples such as lobster roll, clam roll, steamer clams, clam choward, mussels, and an arctic char. Of course I went straight for the lobster roll ($18) and Anuja opted for the clam roll ($16). Since neither of these sandwiches came with fries, we also ordered a side of fries ($5). So everything was going fine for a while but then this is where things went downhill. We waited almost 40 minutes for our oysters to come. I know the place was busy but this is really pretty unacceptable, especially when they don't even have bread on the table. I was kind of hoping that if we liked the oysters that we could squeeze in one more order before happy hour ended, but we didn't even get our 1st order until 6:40pm and happy hour ended at 7pm. When our oysters finally came, our waitress just put them down on the table, apologized for the wait, and left. It bothered me was that she didn't even tell us what kind of oysters we were eating. It would be nice to know what the hell we were eating, right? Regardless, the oysters were great. They were a bit on the small side, but they sweet and earthy and the tangy vinaigrette that they came with was nice and tart. They were not the creamy variety but more of the briny type. If we had gotten our order earlier, I probably would have ordered more at the happy hour rate. After they took our oysters away, we went through the waiting game again. When our sandwiches finally came out, I couldn't understand why it took so long because they weren't really big at all. In fact, it's probably one of the smallest lobster rolls I've seen in a while - but to be fair is it cheaper than other places as well. Despite the small size, the chunks of lobster was sweet and delicious from both the tail and claw. The roll was pretty clean in that there was very little mayo mixed in. It was essentially lobster meat with 1 small dolp of light mayo on a small buttered roll and not much else. Meanwhile the clam roll was not what we expected. It was a fried full belly clam strips with tartar sauce on a buttered roll - which is what we expected but the tartar sauce was incredibly spicy. It wasn't just a tad spicy but full blown throat tingly spicy that it just threw us off. Given the size of the rolls, we were done fairly quickly and ended up noshing on the fries for the rest of meal. They were the kind that were slightly burned and crispy. By the time we finished the fries, we were pretty full but it was pouring sheets of rain, so we ordered a slice of Steve's Key Lime pie ($8). I've had Steve's before as it's a Red Hook local vendor and it's fantastic. It's tart, sour, and the graham cracker crust was sweet and crunchy.
All in all, the downfall of this review was the awful wait time. I almost expected them to comp us something because we waited for so long. Even though they acknowledged the wait time, it almost made it worse that they knew we waited forever but didn't do anything for us. Also - the small size of the lobster roll was kind of a bummer too. I know how much lobsters cost retail and it would have been nice if they added just a bit more lobster to make it worth my while. But I'm such a huge sucker for quaint seafood type shacks that if someone wanted to give this place a try, I would still go with them. Total bill: $49/pp with tax and tip.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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