Soup Friday: Dockside Willie’s - Seafood Chowder
New Year, New Soup! My New Year’s resolution is to be more financially conscious and be more mindful of my spending habits at restaurants. This may negatively affect Soup Fridays going forward, but I can’t keep throwing away money on overpriced soups. Just kidding! Reckless soup spending on Fridays will continue indefinitely!
Tonight, I traveled with my friend Tony to Dockside Willie’s (Dockside) to try their soup for the first time ever. Dockside is the middle location of three restaurants positioned in a row along the west shore side of the Susquehanna riverfront. With all three locations being managed by the same ownership group, this review could have been completed at either of the other locations due to the fact that they all basically have the same exact menu. Tequila Willie’s, to its credit, may offer a few additional Tex-Mex items, but their little bit of creativity ends there. The unoriginal name of Tequila Willie’s really grinds my gears. There’s already one restaurant with Willie’s in its name. Did we really need a second? Personally, I miss Rock Bass Grill, Tequila Willie’s predecessor at that building, and its artificial upscale atmosphere that had a true menu of its own. I recognize the public may not agree with me entirely on this one and would prefer to have another casual spot to visit for happy hours featuring just mediocre bro-country hits. However, I think we can find some middle ground and all agree that a new two-syllable name would be the optimal modification for everyone. It could be Tequila Billie’s, Tequila Lillie’s, Tequila Tillie’s, really anything other than Willies. Think about all the times someone who was planning on meeting a friend or loved one lost a minute of their precious time by going to the wrong Willie’s! I continued my rant as we parked and walked inside of Dockside. Fortunately for Tony, who has already heard this tirade from me eight times, another trivial matter rapidly captured my attention.
Not my first preference, but it’s still better than Willie’s.
As we sat down, my eyes immediately became glued to the television screen of a local station’s report on the tragic news of the Cartoon Network Hotel’s closure in Lancaster. I have no ties to this particular hotel, but I still want to dedicate this Soup Friday to all the cartoon pieces of décor that lost their jobs tonight. The waitress came over to us and I immediately requested tonight’s soups. My options were limited and quite one-dimensional. They included the mainstay down river chili, which was ineligible for just being chili, and the soup of the day, clam chowder, which was ineligible due to my recent review of clam chowder at Bacco last month. My final option and their seafood soup of the day, seafood chowder, somehow rescued the night with its technical eligibility. With this thorough process of elimination completed, I placed an order for a cup of the seafood chowder. Interestingly, the cup of soup will run you $7, while the bowl only costs $8. I needed to save room for drinks and tacos, so this required me to splurge $7 on a cup that would likely not be worth its value.
Nothing like some seafood freshly-caught seafood out of the mighty Susquehanna River.
After a five-minute waiting period that randomly included Tony and I recalling PBA bowler Pete Weber’s most iconic moment where he triumphantly yelled, “Who do you think you are? I am,” our waitress delivered my seafood chowder. I quickly noticed the chowder’s pungent odor. After taking a minute to become accustomed to it, I retrieved a large heaping of it with my spoon. The cup contained a well-balanced blend of crab, clam and potato. It also benefitted from the added parsley on top of it. While I was ultimately pleasantly surprised with the seafood chowder, I still felt as though I’ve had better versions of each of these elements on their own elsewhere. If you’re ever at Dockside or any of these three locations, definitely consider ordering a bowl, not a cup, of the seafood chowder and let the manager know that they should change the name of Tequila Willie’s!