Stowe's Seafood - Review

Intro
Stowe's Seafood - Dude Grade C+
347 Beach St
West Haven, CT 06516
Phone: (203) 934-1991

We were visiting the New Haven area for Louis' Lunch and Pepe's Pizza, but with the weather being nice I wanted some fried seafood. Looking at Yelp, this seemed to be the consensus winner in the area. This place is solid and it's quite awesome eating out in great weather looking at the ocean.

Our Menu
Foxon Park Root Beer **
New Haven has their own local soda (since 1922) and this is pretty damn delicious stuff. Superbly refreshing and this may match my fave - Dr Brown's. A tad too sweet, but still great though.

Fried Clam Belly *
After our visit to Newport, RI, I know fried clam belly is where it's at - chewy flavorless clam strips are for suckers. These here are pretty fun (good clam flavor and not greasy), but now that I've had Flos Clams in Newport all else are lacking. Wish these were juicier like Flo.

Lobster Saute Roll **
Incredibly delicious lobster roll - not the mayo based kind, but sauteed in butter. The lobster and roll are sweet and incredibly yum when drenched in butter.


Soft Shell Crab Sandwich
I love me some soft shelled crab, but this didn't cut it. It was crisp and not greasy, but totally lacked in crab flavor. Worked much better adding malt vinegar and chili sauce, but then you even lose more crab flavor. Wasn't terrible by any means, but not worth ordering.

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way | (no stars - poor to average) | * Good | ** Great | *** What the F – in a good way

Overall Restaurant Experience

• Food (C) – Fun fried seafood.
  
• Service (N/A) – You order at the counter and they give you a number. Food takes about 5 minutes to come out, which is pretty damn quick.
  
• Atmosphere (A) – A little shack across from the beach in West Haven - can't beat that. Inside looks like it's from a cheezy pirate movie, which I totally dig! There are a bunch of picnic benches outside which may seat around 30 pirates. We got there at 12:30pm on a Saturday and there was no line. Maybe around 20 people seated, but there was always a constant flow in and out for take out orders.
  
• Price (C) - Fried stuff are around $10 a boat and $10 for each sandwich.
  

Closing Comments
After visiting Newport, it's hard to eat fried seafood without dreaming about the awesomeness over there. This place is still a fun place to eat at, so if I'm ever in the area again I would probably go back.