Restaurant review: McGrath’s Fish House

Overall
Food		Service
Ambience		Prices

McGrath’s Fish House is a small national chain that just opened (after a long delay) their first outlet here in the Denver area, at the Colorado Mills in Lakewood.  A group of us hopped over there for a business lunch yesterday.

Food:  The menu is, of course, mostly seafood, though there were alternatives available.

We skipped the starters.  My order came with a garden salad — rather bland, somewhat limp lettuce, untossed (with dressing or the add-ons).  My neighbor who had crab cakes said they were very generic.  At this point, folks were comparing the place to Red Lobster.

My entrée was red snapper, “Cajun grilled.”  It was very tender, and quite tasty (which I say as a non-seafood person).  The fries on the side were okay.  The asparagus was large and a bit crunchy.  Portions were okay (for lunch, at least).  Everyone else around the table seemed to enjoy their entrées quite a bit.

Another neighbor and I split the apple crisp dessert.  It was quite tasty, though the “crisp” could have been a bit more so.

The iced tea was good.  A lot of folks had a strawberry lemonade which looked yummy (and came with sugar on the rims).

Service:  The place opened just a week or so, and we had several people serving our table; the suspicion was that there were trainers from other stores lending a hand.   That aside, the service was competent and friendly, if not spectacular.  Refillable drinks were refreshed on a regular basis.

Ambience:  The place is done up in lots of decorative wood, belted ceiling fans, wooden shutters, etc., in a sort of “southern classic” fashion — though there were some odd cable lights over our tables that were attractive on their own but kind of an odd modern accent.  The surroundings were pleasant but not distinctive.

Prices:  Pretty reasonable — $10-20 for lunch plates.  Our group of ten ended up with a tab of $225 (including the inserted 15% tip).

Overall:  As another restaurant in the area of our office, McGrath’s is welcome as an alternative, but nothing so special as to be a “destination” restaurant.  My own tastes for that class of restaurant in the area would be Macaroni Grill or Hops.  And, outside of office needs, for seafood (etc.), I’d go to Landry’s or Pappadeaux’s for  a broader, tastier menu.  But if someone suggests going back there again, I won’t cringe at the prospect.