Dockside Cafe

A shining point about Dockside is the staff, who are wonderfully friendly, hard working, and helpful.  

This would be insanely great if it could serve burgers, fried seafood, clams on the halfshell, and a couple of decent local beers.  Or a Maryland style crab shack on the water.

Instead, the menu is an multicultural schizophrenic incoherent hodge podge of fussy meals (boullibase, beef "yakitori" (isn't yakitori chicken properly?), lemon grass, with ragouts of this and that).   And serving New England Clam chowder in New York?  The chef has a very strange ambition.

The fish in the fish broil is talipia! Serving farmed fresh water fish by the bay, that come frozen by the box??    I suppose the lobster isn't local, the shrimp aren't local, so why do I fuss?  Because it's right by the Atlantic ocean and there's no local flounder, fluke, sea bass, shark, crabs, or blue fish.  

Compounding is that this kitchen has to work a lot harder to turn out  this range of ambition well.   At the moment, it's a charade of fine dining.  

The only thing authentic to the charade is the pricing.  Entrees are priced toward $30 a plate.   Add appetizers, dessert, you're talking near $50 per person before you even start on drinks.

The simple things seemed better.  I recommend sticking with a couple of plates of mussels (super fresh, local, perfectly cooked and tender), some fried (frites if you will) and a Bud, and enjoying the view of the bay.

One of the few things that I was actually pleased with was the location.

Besides that  we had overcooked noodles, under-seasoned fish and incredibly annoying music (more appropriate for  a Saturday night at Lily Flanagans, not a weeknight at an overpriced restaurant on the water).

I'm sorry to say I won't be back.

Great Food, Good Portions, A Little Pricey.