Mermaid Bar

Over the weekend, I went to Mermaid Bar in Greenwich Village with my parents. I offered to treat them to dinner after receiving my first two paychecks, and we are definitely a seafood eating family. 

We started with the grand platter, a tower of two oysters (mixed of East and West Coast, and we requested a few Kumamoto oysters on the side. There were also half a dozen clams, shrimp cocktail, a salmon ceviche, and half a lobster. 

Other appetizers we ordered included the crab cake, New England Clam Chowder, iceberg wedge salad, and a fish taco. Everything was quite underwhelming, except the wedge salad, for the pungent Maytag blue cheese  used on the iceberg wedge salad was superb. It's making me salivate thinking about it right now.  

The lobster and truffle macaroni and cheese was the reason I came here, but it was only acceptable. Stephanie's was more aromatic and the cheese melded with the macaroni more.  

The brussel sprouts were delicious and made me make my grandmother promise me to make more for Thanksgiving. It is fried with bacon and almonds. 

My father ordered the special, a linguini with scallops in a garlic and white wine sauce.

I wanted to try the lobster roll, as many have written about, but it was nothing compared to Neptune's. The fries were nice and crispy and seasoned with old bay. 

They offered a complementary chocolate pudding for dessert, that was rich and I couldn't get enough of it. 

The food was good at Mermaid Bar, but not something that I thought impressed my parents much. It's definitely a place to go with friends for a nice meal with drinks. It's in a tight space and has a noisy lively atmosphere. Or as my mom said, "Next time don't bring me to such 'young man' place." 

Mermaid Bar
79 Macdougal Street
New York, NY