Blue Plate Oysterette — Restaurant in Santa Monica

Found this place on #Yelp and my tummy is super happy that we did!!! See pics and fair warning of the long read! 😊🙃

In Summary: Parking - 👎🏽Find street metered parking and walk. Lot next to it overcharges (per 12mins - we paid $20 for less than 1.5hrs) Location: On Ocean, right next to BOA Steakhouse - look for the blue colors, easily missed COVID Precautions - Vaccine requirement for indoor seating (digital QR CODE available at host stand), but will seat unvaxxed outside (with heaters). Socially distanced tables, masks required to use restrooms. 😷 Staff - 🤩🤩🤩 Very friendly, attentive, and accommodating! Chef split our shared items onto separate plates, for us! Food - 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽 EAT HERE

We came here for a supposed "seafood appetizer" before our "real dinner" at Mastro's Ocean Club (up PCH). Well, needless to say; we over-indulged here first 😬. Word to the wise, this place is definitely a full meal experience so don't double-book restaurants in one night LOL - be better than us! HAHA!

Food: 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽🤤😋 Everything we ordered, we shared and it was all fresh and delicious!! #nomnom Happy Hour (aka Oyster Hour) is from 4pm - 6pm daily with live music Wednesdays. 🎶

*HH items: $16 half dozen oysters anyway you like and $10 BPO Specialty Drinks - We ordered 1 dozen grilled. They were shucked well and cleaned very well - no dirt or grit - very clean tasting, flavorful, and plumpy meat. Next time will order half dozen fried. Ask for black pepper and hot sauce. 🦪🦪🦪😋🤤 I ordered the Strawberry Mule - yummy, not very strong, but the "sonic ice (If you know you know lol) and garnish pick were super pluses! Hint: squeeze the lime and mull the fresh strawberry into the mule, chew the candied ginger with the last sip as a chaser!

Crispy Fritto Misto: light battered calamari, shrimp, oysters, and thin zucchini slices served with cocktail, tarter, and fresh lemon. Fried quickly to maintain the freshness and bouncyness of all the meats. Well done, but ask for hot sauce and the Dijon aoli - trust me!

Large Rock Claw: Though the meat is sweet-tasting, I'd skip this next time and wouldn't recommend it, especially for $20/ea. The red sauce is sweet and not a fave, but the Dijon aoli is yummy. You can spend that $20 on a different dish.

Tiger Prawn Louie: A MUST!!!! So refreshing and the tiger prawns are GINORMOUS, chilled, and cleaned well! The Louie dressing is just right and not over-powering. Watermelon radish shaves are a vibrant touch. Hint: squeeze a little lemon onto the prawns and salad for some brightness!

Lobster Roll: Aoli dressed with side of Old Bay fries - also a MUST!!! The amount of perfectly cooked lobster meat in each roll is heavenly! The shoe string fries are addictive and crispy, perfecto! Next, I'll try the undressed with hot drawn butter.

Key Lime Pie: Wow, wow, WOW 😳😍🥰 this is THEE BEST key lime pie I've ever tasted IN MY LIFE!!!! They comped this dessert as a birthday gift, and my partner ate it ALL, he's not even a fan of key lime pie! IT IS THAT GOOOOD!!

As always, don't only take my words and always try for yourselves! Be your own #foodies and #cheers my friends!

#TravelEatLove ✈🍽🥢❤ #iEatLA #Foodie #SkinnyFat #FollowMe #befreeV...

Our family of four came during DineLA so we ordered 2 of the DineLA menus and 2 entrees since we're not that big on desserts. The DineLA menu came with half a dozen oysters so we had a whole dozen. The type of oyster was nothing special--I wished we had ordered off their menu instead. They were pretty fresh but not very well cleaned since every single oyster, except for one, had shell remnants. I really liked the lobster roll, only con was how short it was--even the one we ordered off the regular menu (the DineLA lobster roll was half the size of the one we ordered off the regular menu). The french fries that were served with the lobster rolls were heavily seasoned and thus very salty. The DineLA seafood pasta we ordered was good but nothing special/memorable and I noticed it's not on the regular menu. Our favorite dish was the branzino which was deboned and had crisp skin. It was visually stunning and even the vegetables it was served with (potatoes and cherry tomatoes) were scrumptious. I'd come back just for the branzino. For dessert, we had the strawberry shortcake and the key lime pie. The shortcake was a bit dense but the strawberries were very fresh. The key lime pie was not too sweet and had the right combination of creaminess and tartness, one of the better key lime pies I've had. Note that only the key lime pie is available on the regular menu. The atmosphere of the place was nice but the tables are so close together that you definitely hear everything your neighbors say and that makes it a little awkward. The staff was friendly but I guess they're short-staffed because it took 20 minutes for us to get refills for our water glasses after I flagged...

If you are looking for really GREAT seafood... try someplace else!!! What a disappointment! I was really looking forward to this place because I kept seeing reviews that referred to "whole belly" fried clams, something I relished growing up as a child in New England. I need to keep looking. The fried clams were a pile of dark, over-fried batter on elastic pieces of clam. Most of the pieces were minuscule or just batter. No seasoning and the white mayo sauce that came with it tasted like nothing. The seafood combo was three shrimp, over fried calamari pieces and oysters. The fried oyster tasted more like a whole belly fried clam than the clams did, but again, there was no seasoning just a bland batter on everything. The steamers were the only passable item we had, but there were not very many and they were very small. Flavorless broth, two pieces of bread and even the clarified butter had no flavor - how do you do that?? The tarter sauce tasted like something you'd get in a packet. On top the that the service was annoying. It was Christmas eve and we opted to sit outside. They made us sit right next to the hostess stand so the phone with the ringer turned up LOUD kept ringing in my mom's ear. We were all alone out there and the staff was clearly bored so they were totally up our a**es. Annoying servers are just as bad as bad service. There was a hostess standing at the stand the entire time and she was so close to us she was smiling at any joke we made and was interjecting into our conversation. This was when she wasn't having one of the 3 valets who were standing around try to teach her Spanish. For $70 I would have liked some FLAVOR. This was just really,...