DC Restaurant Review: Grillfish

Grillfish is a restaurant that preports to do fish simply and well. I would disagree, I would say they do things garlicy and thats about it. The menu supports a ton of fish dishes grilled served with two sauces, sweet onion and garlic tomamto, and all meals come with jasminie rice. I have had rice and fish as long as i can remeber, so the meal had a tinge of hominess to it.

The meal: seafood chowder, calamari, grilled shrimp scampi, (split the 3 apps) cesaer salad, mahi mahi, crabcakes, (no i did not have two entrees) mango key lime pie, and coffee.

Seafood chowder: garlic based with a ton of seafood blended in it. Its was a little too much too eat. i think it would have been better as an appetizer with a baguette to shred and dip.

Calamari- What is the deal does everyone just buy from one vendor. We are supposed to be at a seafood place and they give us bad frozen calamari. Needless to say this was crappy. I mean how hard is it to get some fresh calamari batter it up and serve. this was limp and the sauce was not memorable at all. This was a failure.

grilled shrimp scampi- the beauty of scampi is the when done right it is a great starter. It helps to cultivate your taste buds by opening your palate up to a wide range of tastes. The problem with this dish is that there is a major difference between grilled shrimp and sauteed shrimp. Grilled shrimp harnasses a characoal flavor that can br great and smokey but when you combine that flavor with an excessive garlic sauce the appetizer becomes too much. What Grillfish should do is take the sauce form this dish and serve it with their bread. This appetizer had a harsh combination of flavors that was unexpected. Seperately the flavors work combined it was startling.

Cesaer Salad- Big leaves of romaine with fresh made dressing. In terms of ettiquette and manners when one prepares a salad the person eating it should never have to use a knife. In fact it is impolite to use a nknife will eating a salad. This ultimately must be left to the server or cook to rectify. Bite size is key. I enjoyed this salad, the dressing was fresh and had a nice dose of garlic in it. My only complaint again is the whole leaf size.

Mahi-Mahi- Many years ago we did a family trip to Hawaii, we hopped islands and for a few days found oursleves at the Princeville Resort on Kauai. We had dinner at the resort and they had all sorts of fresh fish on the grill. I had mahi-mahi for the first time there and I loved it. That was actually what I was thinking my meal would be like at grillfish. Mahi-Mahi is a nice firm fish that cooks well. The fish was not bad. i enjoyed it and the rice was a nice touch, cooked well and not that fluffy rice but nice clumpy asian rice. The two sauces a sweet onion, and the creamy tomato garlic sauce were mediocre. i think a touch of sea salt and a hint of olive oil would have been a better way to prepare the food. Overall the fish was OK. It didnt stun me, it didnt bring me back to that meal at Princeville resort but it was OK.

Crabcakes- It said it was a lump meat crab cake. It was not. it was crap. It is insulting to see people screw up crabcakes. Never get this.

Key Lime Mango Pie- Good but should have been a bit more creamy. The mango key lime was infused with cinnamon which kicked ass.

Coffee- I had a capuccino and it sucked. It was bad.

Service- OK not stellar.

Overall- i think you can grow to like this place and if the cooks would let the fish stand out on its own it can work. This place will not be in rotation.

On my DC scale is that the bill is in committee and everyone wants to amend it and make it better.