Upstate Visited 8/15/2013 4 Forks

Upstate 95 1st Ave., New York, NY 10003

In my ever long quest to find the best oyster happy hour, Janet and I decided to give Upstate a try and see if it was worth all the hype.  While it was packed with other oyster fanatics, Maison Premiere still wins hand down in my book.  But in terms of quaint seafood only bars, Upstate is a pretty strong contender.  For happy hour (5-7pm), you can get 6 oysters and 1 beer for $12.  While Maison has about 20 different oysters to choose from, Upstate has 4 to choose from and if you order them regularly they cost about $2-3 each.  Janet and I ordered a little bit of each of the happy hour specials.  They were good but they weren't as big and meaty as I would like them.  Some of them also had too much salt water inside of them too.  I would have ordered more but since Janet doesn't drink, it didn't make sense to keep ordering them because then I would be the only one downing the beers.  I prefer a more straight forward $1 happy hour pricing instead of a food and drink combo but I appreciate the sentiment. Instead, we ordered a bunch of appetizers to share:  squid salad on a bed of kale ($13), crab cakes ($12), and salmon tartare ($12).  The squid was grilled and charred and well seasoned.  I appreciated that the squid was grilled instead of the typical fried type in bars because it's just a cleaner more simple way to eat it.  While I liked the concept of the squid on a bed of kale, the kale was a bit soggy and bland.  Next, the crab cakes were the small mini kinds served on a bed of arugula.  The crab cakes didn't have much filler which is nice but it was a bit too heavy on the breadcrumbs on the outside that you couldn't really enjoy the crabmeat.  I guess since both Janet and I are from MD, we are extremely opinionated about our crab cakes and there really isn't anything better than an authentic no-filler, non breaded crab cake from our home state.  This was good but it was bursting with lump crab meat which is how I like my crab cakes.  As for the salmon tartare, Janet thought that it need more seasoning or soy sauce but I actually liked the clean flavor of it.  It's pretty much raw chopped salmon with some scallion and a hint of sesame oil - similar to something you would find at a sushi place.  If the meal had ended there, I probably would have given this place 3.5 forks.  But the thing with seafood is that it hardly fills you up.  While we were looking at the menu, we saw that the couple next to us had ordered the fettuccine with clams ($15) and we were totally sold.   This dish alone was 4 forks.  It was rich, intense and heavenly.  It's everything you shouldn't be eating if you are on a diet.  It's thick, heavy ribbons of fettuccine soaking in tons of garlic, butter and olive oil. The clams that came with it were meaty and tasty.  After swimming in all of this richness, the bar served us complimentary slices of whiskey cake - which is similar to a rum cake but with whiskey instead.  Who doesn't like free alcohol soaked cake?!

All in all, this is a unique solid seafood joint in the East Village.  They say that they don't have a freezer, so the food is super fresh and various every day, so you may not see the same thing if you are a repeat visitor.  Total bill: $49/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp