Midtown Lunch

It’s summer and when it’s hot outside sometimes a room temperature lobster roll sounds like the only thing good to eat, besides ice cream. The problem is if you go to the Red Hook Lobster Truck, Luke’s Lobster or any other place that serves seafood stuffed into toasted hot dog buns, you’re going to pay $15 or more for the privilege.

But! As we’ve discovered at Luke’s, sometimes the other seafood rolls are both cheaper and tastier (or as tasty) as the lobster variety. With this in mind, I hit up Red Hook Lobster’s kiosk at the South St. Seaport’s Smorgasburg pop up and sampled their shrimp roll. I was not disappointed. 

In addition to the shrimp roll, you can also get a $10 lobster BLT from the Red Hook stand. Otherwise, you’re going to have to shell out $16 for one of two different kinds of lobster roll – one with mayo, the other butter.

The shrimp roll contains a pile of the tiny creatures swathed in tarragon mayo with a dusting of celery salt, paprika and scallion. The only other thing nestled in the top-split toasted (with butter!) bun is some shreds of iceberg. I found this a little weird, but it didn’t take anything away from the roll.

There’s enough shrimp in here that I didn’t feel ripped off by the $10 price tag, and find I can justify it as a summer indulgence. Whether or not you can make the same justification is your call.

Red Hook Lobster Pound, daily at the South St. Seaport, Front St. off of Fulton. And find the truck on Twitter