02.15.08
Review of Atlantic Grill, Saturday December 2007
1341 3rd Ave. & 76th/77th St., 212-988-9200
Great for: bread, pineapple juice, watching Upper East Side bitches (I used to be one so I can call them that)
I used to live in the 70s on the UES, which was cool because I had a large rent-stabilized apartment, but sucked in almost all other ways. One of the few saving graces was the plethora of restaurants I could choose from that were within a 10-block radius. Sushi of Gari, Sushi Seki, Hacienda de Argentina, Daniel… Atlantic Grill was one of the few that I hadn’t tried. For some reason the Boyfriend and I decided to have brunch uptown, and I remembered that I’d always wanted to go here.
We had high hopes for the place, since Boyfriend likes its sister B.R. Guest places Dos Caminos and Vento, I like Blue Water Grill and Isabella’s, and we both loved Primehouse. We were sorely disappointed. The only good thing we had was the crab cake appetizer, which came with corn salsa and whole grain mustard remoulade. The Boyfriend’s lobster bisque was not good, we couldn’t taste the lobster, and the only yummy part was the crab profiteroles on top. Some might call the flavoring delicate – we called it blah. It was a very 4 out of 10 soup.
For a main I ordered the seafood Cobb salad with scallop, shrimp, crab, bacon and asparagus but no avocado or tomato. They brought the tomatoes anyhow, and the dressing was too citrusy. I am not a seafood expert but I didn’t feel that the shellfish tasted as plump and fresh as it should have – it certainly hadn’t gone bad, I’m not saying that at all, but everything was a little too cold and didn’t have that crisp texture that I find in the freshest seafood. Maybe it had been frozen? Anyway, the best part was the bacon. I always finish the seafood in whatever I’m eating, a holdover from when my parents would make me eat my meals in the most economically efficient way, but I didn’t finish it here.
The Boyfriend’s shrimp and scallop skewers were way too citrusy and the seafood, again, was not very good quality. We said, only half-jokingly, that his pineapple juice tasted better. We are really puzzled as to why this place is packed all the time when everything we had was so mediocre. It’s a lovely-looking restaurant, for sure, and the waiters are quite nice, but the food was really not very good, especially at such sophisticated prices. $25 for two skewers of crappy seafood? No thank you.
Now, in Atlantic Grill’s defense, we went back for dinner one time when we were going to a concert at the 92nd Street Y and the Boyfriend craved shrimp cocktail. This time was a bit better. The yellowtail and salmon tartare appetizer I got was pretty good. Our pound of shrimp was somewhat bland, though, with the same probably-frozen texture, and we didn’t like the sauces except for the standard cocktail sauce. Everything seems to just be varying levels of bland. No matter how much Boyfriend wants shrimp, we are not coming here again.
Rating: 4 / 10
Our cost: $80
Noise level: fine
Chance of walking in: low
