It’s craft beer week in NYC!

Last night, Theodora organized a blogger dinner to take advantage of this momentous occasion. She, Tina, Ashley, Ashley’s husband Bo, Rebecca, Clare and I all met up at the BLT Fish Shack in the Flatiron District, which was running a special promotional menu.

Three seafood courses and three beers for $40? Sign me up!

Before our first courses arrived, Ashley and Bo ordered an incredible raw bar platter for the table. Clams, oysters, lobster, shrimp and crab- just look at the size of this thing! (All the photos I took came out rather blurry…apparently beer doesn’t pair so well with sharp photography.)

I had an oyster, some chunks of crab and several pieces of shrimp. Delicious.

For the first course, we were served a sweet corn & Maryland crab chowder, which came with smoked paprika toast,

And a Blue Point Toasted Lager to drink.

The soup was amazing, but rich. I had about half my bowl before the cream started to get to me. Actually, the toast was my favorite part of this course, topped with butter and a little spice!

Next up was a tempura-fried branzino with braised swiss chard and lemon-jalepeno aioli.

Paired with a Lagunitas IPA.

I love branzino and this was pretty good, but it definitely didn’t need to be fried. The beer, on the other hand, was the highlight of the course. I think most of my tablemates agreed!

Finally, for dessert we were brought “mini-doughnuts” (more like churros), which came with chocolate dipping sauce.

And a Anderson Valley Oatmeal Stout to drink. This one was chocolatey and intense- probably my favorite beer of the night.

Unsurprisingly, these were definitely my favorite course of the night; however, once again, I found it to be really heavy. I’m all for rich food, but three courses of it washed down with full-bodied beers was a lot to handle. Individually, though, I would probably order everything again, and for forty bucks, this meal was the deal of the year.

Over dinner, I loved catching up with everyone. I feel like I don’t see the New York bloggers nearly enough! I sat next to Clare, who was in town for a conference, and I was really glad I got to know her better, as well.

After dinner, the group of us headed to a bar where I had yet another beer- this time a Lucky U IPA. Needless to say, all those drinks caught up with me…it was worth it though :)

How do you feel about beer or wine pairings with menus? Have you ever tried one? This was my first beer pairing, and I really liked that I got to try three new brews.