The New Red Hook Lobster Pound

If you live outside of NYC and know about the neighborhood of Red Hook, it’s for one of two reasons: the IKEA or “The Real World: Brooklyn”. It became one of my favorite parts of the borough to visit after my I convinced my roommate to drive us down there one summer night at sunset when I was trying to make him my boyfriend and thought cramming key lime pie on a stick in our faces would be very romantic. I figured out in the process that Red Hook is really only a 45-minute walk or a 15-minute bus ride from Downtown Brooklyn, enjoys beautiful views of Manhattan, and also boasts the newly-expanded and increasingly-awesome Red Hook Lobster Pound.

I went to the Lobster Pound a few times in the last couple of years, and until recently, it was just a tiny storefront offering a couple of lobster roll options and nowhere to sit. But now it’s a full-service sit-down restaurant with rolls, salads, burgers, hot dogs, fish sandwiches, chowders, whole lobsters, lobster dip, lobster cheese fries, and most importantly, beer to wash it all down with.

My friend started with a Narragansett beer in an adorable glass,

while I had a very tart gin cocktail with soda and lime.

My friend ordered the $20 Connecticut-style lobster rolls because she’s not a fan of the mayo on a Maine-style roll and liked how this was just lightly dressed in butter and lemon to let the lobster flavor shine through, while I got the $19 lobster Cobb salad (“Cobbster”) that was legitimately two meals. It had less lobster than a roll, but it made up for it with piles of bacon, crunchy onions, crumbled egg, and blue cheese. And for those of you torn between the roll and the salad, there’s also the “bikini style” roll, which comes on lettuce instead of bread. In case you want to take a dip in the Gowanus afterward. (Word of caution: you do not.)

The decor of the new place is reclaimed-looking and beachy, with a much-talked-about bathroom with funhouse mirrors and whooshing ocean sounds that may make you seasick, so use it before you chow down on that fish & chips.

And afterward, don’t forget to explore the neighborhood, which is a mix of industrial and adorable, with tons of street art and plant life and the Statue of Liberty across the water at sunset. Can you get over how ~Brooklyn~ it is?