Surf Bar

I've eaten at the Surf bar on three occasions, and will probably never do so again. Their chowder is great, and reasonably priced, their whole fish dishes are good and overpriced, but their service and management is awful! Really, really, bad service. We were patient with the new, inexperienced waitress who seemed more interested in chatting with young fashionistas than waiting tables.... But it took over 40 minutes to get our first round of drinks, and the, she forgot to put in our food order! When our food finally arrived 1 HOUR later, one of the entrees had been left off the order, and another entree was wrong. OK, that's really, really bad... but what did the management do? No discount, no sincere apology, gave us nothing but a hard time. Awful. Good chowder..... Everything else? Mediocre at best.

We went on Memorial day eve. The atmosphere looked great, we were in a great mood. They even had sand and shells so you could smoke LOL Great! BUT the food was not good! My partner ordered the lobster roll, supposedly the best in NYC.... he felt he received a kid meal at a fast food chain. The bun was commercial and cheap and the lobster just covered it like mayonnaise, we mean no food there! I ordered the paella, which was a little bit of rice in tomato sauce which tasted like hamburger helper or something, with ONE mussel, 3 small pieces of calamari and that was it! for $15,-! I had finished 3/4 of it before they even brought my glass of wine and my boyfriends daiquiri was totally virgin! he didn't ask for that, but all other drinks (and menu options) seemed sold out! We had our food and thought: we should go to another restaurant to eat, this was like one tapa! I got angry but calm. Asked for the manager, went to him myself as hours passed and his wife said: I understand you think we ran out of food, we'll send you another plate of food... for two? We waited, nothing came. We left 0,-$ for tip and a request to the waitress to challenge her bosses. We challenged the bosses asking why that was their solution (to send us some more tomato rice for two LOL and left. that's no way to treat a guest, especially in our fabulous Williamsburg!

Just moved to Brooklyn, so I've been looking for good eats. The sand covered floor, strong drinks in hula girl cups, and surf videos projected on the wall, help secure the name. We started with the grilled squid salad w/ lichee and radish, delicious. Also, tried the conch fritters, crunchy with a spicy dipping sauce. For entrees, my date had had the "Gumbo de Freddy", a seafood shishkabob with a cornmeal cake, really good. I had the fish of the day, sea bass, Hawaiian style. It came whole, fried, with an amazing sauce on the side. Teriyake base, onion, wasabi (supposedly), and some kind of pea(?). We still don't know how those little black morsels called peas were made, but we don't care. Honestly, they tasted a bit like raisins. I would definitely go again, there were so many other items on the menu I would try. Only con: service was not so great (but who care really). We weren't sure what to do when we first walked in, while the hostess was at the bar drinking with her friends. It also took a while to get my drink, even though my boyfriend got his right away (Zombie, very srtong).

All their chowders are excellent, but a bit pricey for the portion size. Worth checking out, if only for the kitsch value, like sand on the floor and hula girl cocktail drinks.