Ocean House, in Croton-on-Hudson, is my kind of place. Small, clean, bright, friendly, good service, and BYO. Oh,and the food. Really good, fresh seafood.
There are no reservations taken here, and no liquor sold, so we left our wine and my cell phone number with the charming front-end manager (and wife of the Chef) and spent our 40 minute wait at the little tavern down the street. We had a T&T at the bar and watched my Yankees get their butts kicked by the Angels. The aforementioned Manager/WOC called us when our table was ready. Mr. Foodbabe told the bartender he couldn’t remember the last time he was only charged $4 for a T&T and she said, “you’re not from around here, are you?” 
Geez — we usually pay upwards of $8 for one of those, at a restaurant, without nearly as much atmosphere!
Started with a lobster and crab salad, with a little passionfruit vinaigrette. The seafood was bright and beautiful and the vinaigrette was nice and thick and not too vinegary (I’m used to this type of thing being massacred by other restaurants. Not here!) Mr. Foodbabe started with a salad of endive, apple, blue cheese, and we had a lively discussion about the pronunciation of “endive.” I say, EN-dive. He says, ahn-DEEV. My gosh, we’ve been married a long time :-/
Mr. FB was in a shrimpy mood and had some tossed with gemelli, olives and tomatoes (the M/WOC and I talked about the ages old cheese-and-seafood argument, with her telling a hilarious story about a captain grudgingly putting a wee little bit of some on a plate for her). My swordfish with crawfish beurre blanc was just right. Too often, swordfish is served with something overpowering, with the misguided belief that such a fish needs something “big” to stand up to it. This was fresh, simple, nicely done.
Since we’d had a long, long day — up at 3:00 to take El Secondo to the airport, and a full day of golf and whatnot after, we took our apple empanada home with us and ate it while we watched the gymnast from the USA absolutely rule the pommelhorse.
Next time we go, oysters and whole fish for us, and those gorgeous scallops. The Gazpacho with Crab, if it’s still in season, and something with heirloom tomatoes. And more dessert.
Worth the drive (for us), worth the wait, and if it was more expensive, it’d be worth that, too.
Ocean House
49 North Riverside Drive, Croton-on-Hudson
(914) 271-0702
*****
Wow, that place sounds great. And I’ve learned that I pronounce ‘endive’ the same as Mr. Fabby.