Oceano's Fair Lawn, NJ - Review

I have been coming here since it opened many years ago and have always loved the food.  We decided to have a 40th birthday party here for a group of 12 so we made the reservations for 7:00 and received a confirmation call the day of and off we went.  The service was good as I would have expected, but I was a little disappointed when we were sat in the main dining area as opposed the small out-cove to the back, which I asked for.  Everyone had a great time, lots of food and drink going around with a bill of $1090.00 with tip I was not shocked at all.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the food which ranged from salads and calamari for apps and scallops to crab claws for dinner.  I can only truly comment on what my wife and I had.

Apps we had the sampler, grilled octopus and a Caesar salad. The sampler was good, a nice light hummus, a hearty cheese spread, eggplant spread and a feta with roasted peppers.  The octopus was good, but prepared differently from the way I remember it not a few months ago and same goes for the Caesar, a little too much dressing and it didn’t have the usual "bite" I am used to.  My wife had the lavraki whole fish filleted and de-boned, but this time it had a lemon butter sauce drizzled on it as opposed to the usual olive oil.  I had the grilled lobster for the first time and it was cooked very well, soft delicate texture, not rubbery at all.  My only complaint is that I didn’t get it steamed, since I like the sweet meat from the smaller legs, having been grille they were mostly dried out. 

All in all yet another delightful experience at Oceano's, there were a couple hiccups with missing drinks, missing deserts and an extra app but I tend to give a little leniency to large parties.  I also can’t help feel that maybe there was a chef change here in accordance to some of the dishes we had and I also noticed a "slower" than usual business than in the past, but maybe it was due to school being out in the area and people skipped town for a vacation.   I would definitely recommend Oceano's for a nice night out.