LUKE'S LOBSTER
93 East 7th Street
New York, NY 10009
(212) 387-8487

One of my first memories of lobster is from a trip my family went on to Maine. We had just finished spending 472 hours wandering the L.L. Bean factory store when my parents found an all-you-can-eat lobster restaurant. Literally, all the lobster you can eat, for a fraction of what it would cost just about anywhere else. My mom found heaven. One after another, after another... and another... and another... she had made her way through seven or eight before we left for the hotel where she could spend the rest of the night in a cold sweat throwing up. They say too much of heaven can bring you underground. I suppose that, in a sense, she was returning the lobsters to the seas from whence they came.

Luke's Lobster is a cozy little lobster shack. The people here are warm and smiling; the Maine-esque buoys and fishing paraphernalia are just slightly but cutely out of place in its surrounding East Village neighborhood; the space is tiny. On a busy day, as it was the first time I was here, the line runs to the door and the seating is tight. If you've ever been to A Salt & Battery, then you get the idea. No tables, just stools and some space along the walls. Luke's menu is a pretty simple one. There are no tanks where you point out the lobster of your fancy. You don't sit with a bib and a nutcracker, leaving a pile of shells in your wake. Until they expand, this just isn't an option. There simply isn't the space for anything more complex than what they serve: lobster rolls (and crab rolls and shrimp rolls) and various New Englandy soups like bisques and chowders.

Of course, only a subversive anarchist would go to a place called Luke's Lobster and then order corn chowder. So naturally, I tried their Lobster Bisque. If you're used to a bisque that's country club smooth, then you've got another thing coming with Luke's version. This version is thick and gritty, and with so much lobster in the bisque that its just one step shy of being a lobster stew. On visit number two, they were considerably less crowded. This time, I'd get the Lobster Roll (and, hypocrite that I am, a Corn Chowder). The lobster roll is essentially a toasted hot dog bun in which they stuffed a copious helping of pepper-dusted, chilled lobster. Real lobster. Not that pink, crustacean-like substance you find in fast food sushi. And they don't skimp. Some, like my mom, might sigh at not being able to dunk hot, freshly cooked lobster into a bath of butter, but believe me when I say that this is a pretty good second option. The corn chowder was also quite good. Very creamy, very sweet. My only complaint was that it had just as much potato as it did corn, making it really a corn potato chowder. As a quick lunch goes that's different from the norm and isn't too too expensive, you can't go wrong.