Docks Oyster Bar - Midtown East, NYC — Restaurant in New York

This is only for my experience with the foods we chose this time, I would be curious about the sushi rolls.

Came here on an impromptu date after work and due to my partner having enjoyed a work place meal there last month and wanted to show it to me, particularly the oysters.

Food: They have an oyster happy hour at the bar with $1.50 oysters, it was full so we took a table and ordered the OYSTER COLLECTION a dozen east and west coast oysters. These were excellent and my favorite part of the meal, fresh, our server offered Tabasco, along with fresh and zingy horseradish, cocktail sauce, and mignonette (or their version of it) fair price and great selection. I wish they had told us which was which. Got the SMOKED OYSTERS ROCKEFELLER which came out in a fun glass dome presentation, they had nice flavor but I wasn’t thrilled, they didn’t really have a temperature to them? I’m not sure if that was on purpose. I went with the prefix bc the deal for $60 seemed good and I liked something in each category; appetizer, entree, and dessert. The mans went with a Caesar salad and lobster. The Cesar, which we mean to share, he immediately didn’t like—it had bitter radicchio, greens and although the dressing was said to made in house there simply wasn’t enough to taste, I mean you don’t want to over dress a salad but if you go to the trouble of making it here, make sure it’s featured. The server got him the clam chowder instead and I’d gotten the mussels and seafood soup. I love soup. And I can promise you this $17 (no joke) half cup of soup was beyond disappointing. Lukewarm, little to no seasoning, mainly little tasteless potato chunks, and very little of the featured protein of the soup. We had to salt and pepper it to get anything and I even added the hot sauce I kept, I’ve had better canned soup, man even that bagged soup from Panera had more to it. Despite our efforts to make it taste like something we’d like to eat? Neither of us finished bc it just wasn’t worth it. The entrees were fine, my partner really liked the lobster prep and cook, and the jacket potato which came with little fixings on the side and a surprisingly good Cole slaw as well. I got the little feature, Sea bass or some meaty white fish over stewed tomatoes. It was quite nice, if not all too creative. The dessert came with my pre-fix and we shared, a berry crumble I didn’t bother to take a picture of, it was a little cup with soggy, slightly warmed berry and crumble, with a little ice cream scoop—every homemade crumble of any fruit was MUCH more tasty than that thing that we paid for. Just a bit unimpressive food for that price that makes me question if anything is cooked in the kitchen beside the proteins and that dressing, like is any of it made in house? DRINKS: We got a bottle of Pinot Grigio, wine presentation was perfect. I say that bc I’ve had to learn wine presentation and teach it many times over, and it does take a minute and a steady hand while having to serve others. SERVICE: We had Benjamin, he was polite, prompt, and did a perfectly fine job, checked with us for coursing and everything. I don’t know if it’s Dock’s policy tho? Places I’ve worked, even the silly kitschy job I had in Times Square, if your guest doesn’t finish their food? You see what was wrong with it—like the soups. But everyone was polite and present, professional. ATMOSPHERE: Really lively. The warm lighting was great, clean bathrooms, easily navigated floor plan with enough space, great looking bar and very impressive to walk through. Specials were listed on a visible board and easy to read, music was at level that was easy to tune out or in.

Overall, was it a bad experience? Not at all! Thank you for the dinner, we had a lovely time together, the food was just a bit below the pricing and atmospheric standard we had. Probably wouldn’t eat here again but would recommend the oyster happy hour for the nice...

It was the first time that I'd been to this restaurant and first impressions of the dining area looked promising. The decor was pleasant, though the room is rather large, so not particularly quiet. On the plus side it did mean that we could get a table for two with no problems, even on a Friday night.

Our waitress was pleasant enough and service was pretty quick, except for at the end trying to get the bill. The starters actually came amazingly quickly, about 5-10 minutes after we had ordered.

For the food itself we decided to go for the reasonably priced prixe fixe 3-course menu ($40). Gives you 3 different choices for each course.

For starters I went for the Prince Edward Island Mussels Marinere (though you can choose Provencal), which had to be the largest mussels I've ever had. One slight annoyance was that several of the shells were closed. I pried two open and left the third. Slightly risky as you're not really supposed to eat any where the shells aren't open, but the next day I suffered no ill effects. Though I'd rather not have had to play Russian roulette at all, it would have been easy enough for the server to have discarded any closed shells, given the huge size it wasn't hard to spot them!

For the main course I decided I'd go for some red meat and chose the 1855 Black Angus Hangar Steak, which came with huge potato wedges coated with some kind of spicy powder. The steak was pretty standard but the potato spice was way overdone, unless you like very spicy food. The dark gravy that it came with was nice though.

I had one of the scallops on my husband's seafood dish and that was fine.

For dessert I ordered the chocolate pudding, AKA chocolate mousse, which was nice. My husband had the white chocolate chip cookies which were fine, but much better after dipping into the chocolate mousse! 8)

The food was average, but not all prixe fixe menus showcase the food that well at a restaurant so I'll probably give it the benefit of the doubt and try it again a la carte to see how...

This restaurant does not have highchairs and the employees at the front of the restaurant were both rude and very limited. They pretty much told me and my wife and one year old daughter to leave because they do not have highchairs. This was of course after they told us to wait at the bar for almost an hour for our table. They should have informed us upon entry that the restaurant does not cater to children. This mix up is understandable, but the way in which the employees at the front handled the situation was horrible and is the main reason for this negative review. You have two employees that act as hostesses on Sundays. To not offend anyone, I will refer to the employees as rude employee and limited employee. Rude employee who was acting as the main hostess told me that I should have known that the restaurant does not have highchairs. She was the one who saw all of us walk in and ushered us to the bar. She was rude and horrible at her job and does not know how to take accountability nor does she know how to say the simple word: sorry. Her job, I am assuming is to be kind and responsible: She was not. Then you have rude employee’s assistant, limited employee. Limited employee interrupted rude employee, to tell me that she thought my one-year-old daughter was a “bigger baby” and that this assumption was why she did not tell us that the restaurant did not serve children her age. Here, limited employee proved herself to be quite unintelligent and unsympathetic. I was a long time Docks fan and have been going to Docks for over 20 years. I am shocked how far it has fallen. These employees are a horrible representation of what Docks is supposed to be. It is no wonder that the restaurant was empty. Also, get...