REVIEW: The Oyster Bar

On a Tuesday night jaunt into NYC, Rickey decided to stop off for a bite to eat at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. Be warned: those who are squeamish about eating raw shellfish should avert their eyes at this point. Indeed, it takes a special kind of person to enjoy the sensation of oyster brine trickling down your chin (or man-beard in Rickey’s case). Now Rickey knows very little about the various classifications of raw oysters, but armed with a vocabulary consisting primarily of words such as “awesome” and “scrumtulescent” we think we’ll get the job done just fine.

The Oyster bar features sit down tables, but half the fun of eating there is sitting at the bar and watching the shellfish get shucked right in front of you. So Rickey sidled up to the bar and ordered himself a financially unsound amount of raw shellfish as well as a pint of the local lager. Now, some people might try and tell you that white wine, not beer is a better accompaniment to raw oysters. These people are jackasses, pay them no mind. Rickey sampled a bunch of oysters bearing titles like “Blue Point,” “Wellfleet,” and other names we can’t recall at the moment, and found the Wellfleets to be far and away the best. They’re briny, meaty and sweet—everything that Rickey had hoped for (they’d goddamn well better be at $2.85 a piece). A quick Wiki search on these wondrous mollusks informed Rickey that the salt marshes of Wellfleet, Cape Cod are the perfect environment for raising oysters due to the fact that they are fed by springs. Okey-dokey then. Rickey finished slurping his oysters and took a peek at the entrees.

The main course selections really aren’t the Oyster Bar’s forte, but Rickey figured he’d sample a few things anyway. Ignoring the fact that he wasn’t dining in New England, Rickey thought he’d give the Ipswich fried clams a shot. Predictably, these were not the luscious, plump-bellied beauties you might remember from your Nantucket Red clad yachting expeditions to the Vineyard. Rickey paused while eating these sad little diner fried clams to shed a tear for his suddenly all too distant childhood. The fried oysters on the other hand, were a goddamned revelation, because well, this is the Oyster Bar after all. Crispy, large and juicy, these magnificent fried bastards wiped the preceding travesty from Rickey’s mind. Rickey finished up his meal by feasting upon a dish of oysters rockefeller, which were also exceptional. Reeling from a severe overdose of fried seafood, and badly in need of an antacid, Rickey paused briefly to admire his surroundings.

The decor of the Oyster Bar perfectly matches the rest of Grand Central Station’s majesty. The lighting and mood at the Oyster bar are warm and cozy, yet simultaneously grandiose. For the record, it’s a damn shame no one creates buildings like Grand Central Station anymore. Examining the colorful cloth napkins, Rickey could swear that they were identical to the ones his family used when he was a child—a suspicion that was later corroborated by his mother, who admitted to pilfering the Oyster Bar’s napkins on a regular basis. Lovely.

In summation, for all you seafood perverts out there, Rickey strongly recommends a pit stop at the Oyster Bar while passing through Grand Central. While quite pricey, it’s a worthwhile (albeit waspy) experience for those in search of the freshest shellfish available on the market.

SCORE: Out of a possible five ribs:
4.5