Mary’s Fish Camp, West Village

Where IS the door to Mary’s Fish Camp, anyway?  Too hard to tell.  Thankfully, our colleagues knew the way in, or else Eats Meats West may have given up early.  It was Monday night.  I mean, I’m just saying it was almost a deal breaker.  No sooner did we cram our fat assess into the wall-to-wall tables did we recognize Peter Dinklage two tables away.  Oh, you don’t know Peter Dinklage?  You know, that guy from The Station Agent.  We slowly stumbled over the wine list as we recounted our lives over the past few months.  J gave his usual “I’d like something with a smoky buttery oakiness” requirement, which was of course in jest.  I swear the waitress did actually use two of those adjectives to describe the white we eventually chose.  Over the course of our meal (conch chowder, fried clams & oysters, and lobster rolls) I started to notice that we were slowly being surrounded by gold diggas.  As in, women much too young and attractive for their male counterparts.  Not trying hard enough to listen to her date, the one to our left literally ate the lettuce [and nothing else] off of her lobster roll.  Terrible!  The crackers were somehow the best part of the chowder, which was a little heavy on the vegetable side for my tastes.  I sort of forgot it was conch to be honest, which was the impetus for ordering it in the first place.  It was a little spicy, though, which was nice.  Similarly, the house tartar sauce accompanying the fried clams & oysters was the best part of that dish.  Yes, I did eat some with my spoon.  Thankfully, the lobster rolls broke from the night’s tradition. They were, after all, the entire reason  for our visit!  The market rate came out to $25, which when compared to Eats Meats West’s last lobster roll adventure, was not too bad.  The lobster meat was very hefty, and the light mayo sauce was so buttery.  We had earlier contemplated getting other entrées and splitting maybe two lobster rolls (for four people).  WHAT a disaster that would have been.  Not only did we each easily finish our own rolls, but the slow eater of the group had to constantly fight off the other three, who were already done.  “You don’t really need that, do you?”  “Look!  That piece fell on the table; you shouldn’t even eat it.”  In short, a must try for anyone new to lobster rolls.