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Island Grill's eclectic menu has something for everyone
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OCEAN CITY - We expected it to be a difficult decision before we arrived. Should we dine outside under burgundy umbrellas with a cool sea breeze, or opt for a comfortable booth indoors with the chill supplied electronically? No matter - the menu at the Island Grill would be equally interesting inside or out.
A large printed menu offered something for every taste. A blackboard menu offered a surprising list of unusual daily specials. Listed under "daily catch" on yet another chalkboard was a list of fresh fish available that day. We would have expected nothing less, since the Island Grill has its own fish market on the premises. But it was the safari menu that made Island Grill stand out from all of the rest.
The inside dining room was painted bright white, with yellow and blue accents and loads of sunlight that shone on the various crabs, fish and nautical objets d'art that decorated the larger-than-expected room. Under a pressed-tin ceiling, vacationing families and friends happily went about the business of selecting a summer meal.
Soft rolls and butter were the only things pedestrian about our meal. The Island jumbo crab bites ($9.99) were more than we could have expected. Whole lumps of crabmeat were batter dipped and deep fried, forming a very crisp crust and served on a bed of kale with a mustard-flavor dipping sauce. The wild-mushroom-and-crab bisque ($3.99 a cup) was thick, rich, creamy and loaded with assorted sliced mushrooms like cremini and shiitake. Shreds of crab meat were harder to find, and an occasional piece of shell turned up, too. The menu didn't say so, but the soup had background sweetness that something like sherry usually delivers. The house salad was cold and crisp romaine lettuce, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and grated carrots.
We liked the ginger-sesame dressing - one of Newman's Own, according to the menu - and didn't care much for the mango dressing, which was not listed on the menu. The rack of wild boar ($21.99), a blackboard-menu special, immediately caught our attention. Our server knew that they would be served like pork chops, bone-in, but Frenched, meaning trimmed of scraps around the bone. The kitchen also suggested ordering them medium rare, which we did. Sure enough, they arrived cooked slightly more medium, although still very moist for such thin chops.
Since a long handle was provided naturally, we felt comfortable picking them up and gnawing all the brown bits, our favorite parts, off the bone. We should have ordered the classic apple sauce with the pork, but instead had garlicky-good red-bliss mashed potatoes and grated cole slaw that needed some acid zing. We half expected the hand-breaded fried scallops ($18.99) to have a heavy coat of crumbs, but were pleasantly surprised that they were just barely coated with a light and crisp crust of an instant flour. The crust allowed the sweetness of the local sea scallops to shine through.
Our server confided that none of the desserts were homemade, so we settled for refreshing instead. A single scoop of raspberry sorbet ($1.75) had good berry flavor and was exactly what we needed to finish up the meal.
We thought we discovered some kind of secret dress code, with female servers in pink tops and men in blue, but then the bussers came along clad in gray T-shirts.
Our server had only been on the job a few weeks and seemed flustered at times, handling so many tables all at once. Affable except for the constant use of the word "guys," our server explained easily what was known and went to ask the kitchen staff when the answer wasn't readily available. Smart! Another noticeable shortcoming was the leftover bread and butter, salad stuff and entree remains that had to be pushed aside in order to eat our dessert. Most of those completed dishes should have been long gone.
Expect plenty of families to be dining at the Island Grill, where they offer a special menu for everybody. Kids' choices, early birds and even pre-early bird specials served from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. looked like just the right thing for a very early dinner or a late lunch after a hard day on the beach.
The Island Grill safari menu changes frequently, and offers everything from antelope to venison at various times. This day, the blackboard menu listed alligator bites as an appetizer and the regular menu listed an ostrich-steak entree along with a daily special, our chosen rack of wild boar. Hop on over to the Island Grill if you want to sample some kangaroo or a great selection of local fresh seafood.
(C.C. Hoyt is the pseudonym of a southern New Jersey food writer. Write to Hoyt c/o Food Editor James Clark at jclark@pressofac.com. Restaurant-ratings guide: 4 stars, extraordinary; 3 stars, excellent; 2 stars, good; 1 star, fair; 0 stars, poor.)
Island Grill
Restaurant
100 Atlantic Ave.
Ocean City
Phone: 609-391-9616
Hours: Daily, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Rating:
Liquor license: Alcohol not permitted
Credit cards: Visa/MasterCard
Disabled access: Yes
Price range: Appetizers, $5.99 to $12.99; entrees, $12.99 to $32.99
Our bill for two: $ 67 plus tip
Posted in Restaurant_reviews on Sunday, June 14, 2009 3:10 am
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