Mike and I decided to take a long weekend in Montauk during the off-season. I had heard lovely things about this town at the end of Long Island and the neighboring Hamptons towns. We took the train out to Southampton and rented a car (note to self: DO NOT rent a car at Enterprise in Southampton again… WORST RENTAL CAR EXPERIENCE EVER) and then drove the rest of the way to Montauk.
It happened to be Hamptons Restaurant Week, so we made a few reservations to try the a few of the restaurants in the area. Our first stop was at the very highly recommended East by Northeast.
The restaurant is right on the water and in a beautiful location. We found out that the restaurant ownership company, Fort Pond Bay Company, actually owns a Westchester restaurant that we frequent with Mike’s family in Dobbs Ferry, NY: Half Moon. It had a similar setup with a wall full of windows looking out on the water.
The Restaurant Week menu had a good selection of items, and dinner was just $24.50.
I had a lovely cocktail that was nicely summery.
We decided to start with something off the Restaurant Week menu: a selection of raw oysters. They put them down in front of us and we noticed something… do you know what it is?
How well do you know your shellfish? If you have identified these as clams, you would be exactly right. The waitress was very confused and flustered, and soon recognized that yes, she had mistaken the oysters for the clams.
Luckily, that meant free clams for us! And then out came the oysters. Even better since they were local.
Mike chose to start with the Chopped Iceberg Salad with Red Wine Dressing. It was fine.
I went with the miso mussels with dashi and garlic. These were also… fine.
Mike went with a special addition to the Restaurant Week menu, a burger with an egg on top. This was also… fine.
My main course was Pork Tonkatsu with Coconut Risotto. It was… fine.
For dessert, Mike got 2 scoops of ice cream. It was a bit of a strange concoction. Also… fine.
I got the Chocolate Pots du Creme. Which was… you guessed it… fine.
Overall, our meal was… fine. It was nothing special, nothing was good but nothing was bad. It was a very forgettable meal with some strange service problems throughout. Perhaps it was because it was the off-season or perhaps they weren’t giving it their all for Restaurant Week, but I was very surprised that a restaurant that came so well recommended was this blah. I’m glad we only paid $25 each for this meal, though our favorite part of the meal was definitely the oysters, which were off the RW menu. I can’t recommend this place.
Total Nom Points: 5.5 out of 10
