Restaurant Review: Ed's Chowder House

Ed’s Chowder House at The Empire Hotel
44 West 63rd Street (btwn Broadway & Columbus)
New York, NY 10023
212.956.1288

Ever since our weekend trip to Boston, we have been searching for equally delicious seafood restaurants in Manhattan. Forget the chain restaurants (aka McCormick's and Red Lobster)! We want good chowda, raw bar and grilled lobster!! So did Ed's Chowder House deliver?? Hmm it came pretty close. Read the following review closely before your first visit!

Pros: With the name 'chowder' in the restaurant name, we *had* to eat the chowder. And based on previous reviews and the waiter's recommendation, we had to eat "Ed's loaded shellfish chowder." This is a New England based chowder and then filled with a big chunk of scallop and shrimp! There were unmistakable chunks of clams as well and it made it all delicious! We were almost full from just eating the loaded chowder. Almost. Next, we tasted the Scallop Ravioli with white wine sauce & herbs ($12). Normally, I'm not a fan of scallops but the wine sauce and herbs made this dish absolutely to-die for!! I am definitely going to eat this again in my next visit. Our next appetizer came from the bar-menu. We wanted to try the jumbo lump crab cake from the entree section but we didn't want to order it as our entrees. So luckily we knew (from reading other reviews, hehe) that we could order ONE crab cake which is from the bar menu. Omigosh, this was also delicious - chunky crab meat over a delicious sauce. Sigh, heaven.

Cons: The cons are mostly relegated for our entrees. And it's only because we were so full from our appetizers that we couldn't really enjoy our entrees. I ordered the peppered tuna steak frites with herb butter ($28). Did not love it but only because they overcooked my tuna - I wanted it rare. Jander ordered the moist grilled lobster over a bed of julienned vegetables ($16 per pound with a minimum of 1.5 lbs). According to previous reviews, this is a very popular dish. However, they failed to warn us about the amount of butter used in the dish. They must have melted at least 3 sticks of butter in that one plate!!! And the worst part is, even the vegetables were cooked in butter. Seriously...I could feel my pores oozing with butter after tasting a bite of lobster. I would recommend trying the simple lobster.

Note: The entrees in the menu are divided into 'simple' and 'composed.' The composed items are cooked in a sauce and come with vegetables. And the simple are without sauce/vegetables. Given our experience with the sauces in their entrees, we will go with SIMPLE in the future!

Overall, we found the food delicious and the patrons in the restaurant a bit pretentious. It's definitely a fancy type of restaurant with the average age in the 40's range. Previous reviews have noted the lack of food knowledge by the waiters. Luckily we did not experience that...but I did notice that there were many 'hosts' in the restaurant. At first, I mistook them as guests in the restaurant because I've never seen so many male 'hosts' in a restaurant. They wore blazers and nice pants so I figured they would be patrons. Last observation, since the restaurant is inside the Empire Hotel, I had to 'leave' the restaurant to use the bathroom. I cannot wait to go back here and try their other appetizer options!