Like most places in Newport, the experience here is much better in the calm of the off-season than during the hectic summer season. Even so, the place was bustling on a recent Saturday night.
Though the selection of oysters is limited to about a dozen (as opposed to 30 or more in the summer), that's enough for me to have a great slurping experience! And unlike some other oyster houses in Rhode Island, the selection includes out-of-state oysters as well...from Maine to Virginia.
A full bar means cocktails the way you like them. The wine selection is just OK.
My daughter's Goodburger was devoured, a big smile on her face. The bibb lettuce salad, a nice twist on the standard iceberg wedge salad, featured tasty smoky bits of bacon with blue cheese dressing. A special-of-the-day poke tuna bowl was super fresh and delicious. The char-grilled octopus was tender and tasty. The only letdown was the mis-labeled pork cracklings, which wasn't cracklings at all, but pork belly. (Cracklings are pork skin.) Usually you can't go wrong with pork belly, but I didn't like the seasoning and I thought the fat wasn't rendered enough by deep-frying.
Still, the Midtown Oyster Bar's a fun place to visit...all 3 floors of it!
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