One of my all time favorite places in NYC is Chelsea Market - yes, it's super touristy and always crowded but there's something about it that I just love. I love the idea of being in one place with lots of food related stalls whether it's a restaurant, a kitchen supply store, or a market. One of my favorite places to stop by is the Lobster Place, the seafood market in the back of the market. It's ridiculously expensive but just a pretty market to walk around because of how nicely the food is presented. So I was excited when they opened an oyster bar/seafood restaurant in the space next door.
The menu is your classic East Coast seafood line-up: raw bar, scallops, steamed whole lobster, and lobster rolls but then they have other delicious sounding dishes like miso glazed Hamachi collar, bacon wrapped Char, shrimp mole tacos and Uni Tagliatelle. In terms of lobster rolls they had the CT or ME version. The CT version being a warm, butter soaked version and the ME being the more cold classic mayo based one. Holly and I thought it would be fun to get one of each version and split it. But alas they told us they only had the CT version that night - which I thought was weird because the only difference between the two version is the mayo, so I guess that didn't have mayo that night? We both really wanted lobster rolls, so we just each got a CT version ($25) and split the octopus salad ($16) to start.
The octopus salad was served on a bed of frisee, crispy sunchokes, and then drizzled with a chorizo vinaigrette. I usually am not a huge fan of frisee because I feel like it's eating dirt and this salad didn't change my impression of it. There was too much of frisee and not enough leafy greens and the vinaigrette was very overpowering - didn't help that the salad was completely overdressed with it too. The bits of octopus that we found in the salad were good, not too chewy, but there just wasn't enough of it. I was pretty excited for our lobster rolls since I hadn't had one in a long time but I usually prefer the ME kind with a touch of mayo on it. This one was definitely not bad but I still prefer the cold ME version. The bun was perfectly buttered and toasted and there were definitely lots of chunks of lobster meat inside. While the lobster meat was cut up, I found it hard to take a proper bite because you couldn't really bite through the lobster pieces - you had to take the whole chunk with each bite. Usually the combination of lobster and butter is heavenly and it was fine here, but I just missed that chilled temperature and slight tang you get with mayo. The roll was served with a ton of Old Bay fries and they were super addicting. As someone from MD, I am completely obsessed with anything that has Old Bay on them and this was no exception. I almost ate the entire plate of fries which was not a good thing.
All in all, I did enjoy my meal there and I'm never one to complaint about having lobster but somehow I can't help but feel like I would have enjoyed my meal more if I had the ME version. For $25, it's a pretty good option but since I can't compared apples to apples I'm not sure if I can accurately rank it against some of my favorite lobster rolls like the ones at Pearl Oyster Bar, Mary's Fish Camp or even the Mermaid Inn. But it does get high ratings for its location inside the Chelsea Market and they do have a $1 oyster happy hour that I would totally come back to check out. Total bill with a bottle of wine: $60/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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