Union Oyster House ~ Boston, MA

**Side Trip Mini Review**
Cuisine: Seafood

Location: Boston, MA

Address: 41 Union Street Boston, MA 02108  (617) 227-2750

Having been open for business since 1826, The Union Oyster House in Boston is the oldest restaurant in America as is considered a National Historic Landmark.  The structure that it sits in was built in 1742 as a dry goods store and was at the heart of activity during the period leading up to the Revolutionary War.

The inside of the restaurant has multiple seating areas on 2-3 different levels and is quite dark inside, as one would expect from a building built nearly three hundred years ago! Everything is made of dark, solid wood and historical artifacts decorate the walls.

We had the option of ordering from either the lunch or dinner menu and we chose the dinner menu.  I had only ever had raw oysters once before and did not care for them at all, but given that I was in Boston at the Union Oyster House, I decided I better try raw oysters. So glad I did! They were served with fresh lemon, horseradish and cocktail sauce and oh so tasty! The texture of them wasn’t as slimy as I had expected and they did not taste at all fishy.

I liked the raw oysters so much that I also tried another variety, the Little Necks.  It was love at first bite! The consistency of these were much more firm than the first plate and they had real substance to them.  I ate these with lemon juice, horseradish and cocktail sauce as well.  After eating these little necks I have a new-found love for raw oysters and have been craving them ever since!

There were many delicious seafood items on the menu to choose from, but I wanted lobster so for my main course I ordered the lobster scampi.  The dish included a whole, fresh lobster (from the lobster tank in the lobby!) served over a bed of linguine tossed in a  white wine, garlic and butter sauce with fresh parmesan cheese and roasted cherry tomatoes.  The lobster was delicious, rich and filling.

My companion ordered the Union Special Lobster, a whole lobster stuffed with New England Seafood Stuffing.  The stuffing was a soft, moist, bread-based stuffing with pieces of seafood blended in.  This lobster was very good but the stuffing didn’t really stand out as anything to write home about.

The service was pretty good, although we had a server-change at the beginning of our meal.  Our drinks were promptly refilled and food was prepared in a reasonable amount of time.  Overall, we thought the food at the Union Oyster House was very good, especially the raw oysters.  The lobster was also very good, especially served scampi-style.  It was a good meal and we enjoyed it quite a bit but it was not the best meal I have ever spent $140 on before. The ambiance of the restaurant is about what I would expect of an establishment that is so old and has so much history, but it is still cool to say that I have now eaten at the oldest restaurant in America!