Pearl Oyster Bar - Review

Intro
Pearl Oyster Bar - Recommended
18 Cornelia St, New York 10014
Btwn Bleecker & W 4th St
Phone: 212-691-8211

Met up Mr. Risotto and D'Artagnan for dinner and was itching for some seafood. My first inclination was to give Mary's Fish Camp a try. Saturday night 7pm, no reservations, no luck...that place is tiny and it was at least a 1 1/2 hour wait. I suggested Pearl Oyster Bar. I've been there before and always found the food very solid. It didn't fail. Overall, I give the restaurant an 83/100.

My Menu
1) Fried Oysters – Recommended
2) Pearl Caesar – Highly Recommended
3) Bouillabaisse – Recommended

Dish Comments
1) I'm a sucker for oysters and really anything that's fried. These are nice. Crispy, juicy, and flavorful. If the remoulade sauce was better, it would be highly recommended...something not so great about it. A little too sour and not fatty enough.
2) OK, so I haven't ordered a Caesar salad in a long time. As a kid, I loved the Caesar salad, but the dressing was always the crappy generic white sauce from a squeeze bottle...you know what I'm talking about. Pearl's Caesar would have made Julius or Octavius proud. Refreshingly crispy lettuce and the proper dressing (garlic, raw egg, parmiggiano, anchovies (?) and other seasonings).
3) Quite different from what I expected. Generously and surprisingly packed with seafood - sea bass, mussels, clams, scallops, and lobster. All items were nicely cooked and the broth was quite flavorful. Wish there was more broth though. The garlic bread was decent, but could have been better.

Overall Restaurant Experience (83/100)

• Food 8.5/10 – Food is consistently solid here. Nothing blowing me away, but everything making me very happy.
• Service 7.5/10 – Waitress was a little rude, but it was pretty packed in there. Food came out relatively quick.
• Atmosphere 7.5/10 – Classic oyster bar. Marble bar, white wall with some mirrors. The place was very packed and basically no room for people to wait. Took about 45 minutes to get a seat without reservations, Saturday 7:15pm. Lots of couples there older and younger. Groups of 2 and 4.
  
• Price 8.5/10 – Good price point for the quality. My portion of the bill was around $50 which wasn't so bad for salad, entree, beers and a portion of the fried oysters.

Closing Comments
There's a bunch of fish shacks all over the city and I'd like to try more - BLT Fish Shack and Mary's Fish Camp come to mind. However, Pearl is consistently solid and way better than The Mermaid Inn. Side note - I was a little reluctant to go to this place, since the owner (Rebecca Charles) is suing Ed's Lobster bar for copying her ideas - the marble bar, the packets of oyster crackers, the dressing on the Ceasar. I think that lawsuit is horsesh!t and if that were the case, any New England or San Francisco fish shack/oyster bar should be suing her ars. All restaurants draw influences from other restaurants, just like most movies are influenced by other movies. End of rant...regardless of that thought, for the price and quality, Pearl still rocks.