Yankee Pier

CLOSED
78 Santana Row
San Jose, CA 95128
Phone: 408-244-1244website

Vitals:
Lunch: daily from 11:30am
Dinner: Sun.-Thurs. 5:30pm - 9pm Fri.-Sat. 5:30pm-10pm
Accepts credit cards
Kid-friendly
Outdoor seating

We went here early on a Sunday night. It wasn't crowded and the restaurant was quite empty inside (although many tables outside were occupied). The service here is quite nice (I did a quick review of the Yelp reviews and many reviewers complained about the lousy service, which didn't apply to us). If you want seafood (American style), then this place has something that will likely appeal to you.

The menu is quite extensive with a lot of offerings from raw oysters, seafood pastas to non-seafood options like steak, burgers and chicken. Whenever I go here, I always opt for the lobster roll ($19.50). Maybe it's because eating here reminds me of my trip to Maine and how I fell in love with eating lobster rolls. You can have your lobster roll hot or cold. The cold version is basically like lobster salad, cold pieces of lobster with mayonnaise and some celery (kinda like a egg salad) and the hot version is served warm with butter and shallots. My preference is the hot lobster roll. It was so decadent. The roll itself was like a huge slice of buttered bread folded in two, but it was nice and toasted. Inside, there is a fair amount of buttered lobster (there can never be enough), mixed in with some veggies. It was delicious. The lobster roll was served with some chips and coleslaw. I've never been a fan of coleslaw but it added the right counterpoint to the rich lobster roll.

We also tried the market fish with two sides. We were given a choice of different fish (such as sea bass and red snapper), preparations (grilled, baked or pan fried) and sauces (such as plain, lemon caper with butter). The Californian sea bass in a butter lemon caper sauce was also quite good. The portion, while it seemed small at first, was adequate. Sometimes it's hard to dress up a fish, but it was very fresh and the sauce had a delicate flavor that didn't overpower the taste of the fish. I also liked that this restaurant is a part of "Seafood Watch", which is led by the Monterey Bay Aquarium which promotes sustainability practices for seafood. It made me feel better about eating here.

The sides. We had ordered some vegetables and the macaroni and cheese. The vegetable portion was TINY! It was still good, but the small mound of vegetables was pathetic. The mac and cheese, however, was awesome. It was made with cheddar cheese and butter with some breadcrumbs on top. It was flavorful, rich and not too cheesy. Perfect.

Next time, if I can muster up the strength, I'll have to forego the lobster roll and try something else. Or, maybe get my hubby to order something else and try his food.

We were able to get a $25 gift certificate from Restaurant.com for $2 (it's usually $10, but we were able to use an 80% off coupon). What's nice about this certificate is that the minimum was quite low, only $35 (although an automatic gratuity of 18% applies). Although our order exceeded $35, using the certificate enabled us to try a few new things and we didn't feel constrained to order the cheapest dishes on the menu.