Rumor had it Blue Water Grill had a new menu and perhaps a new chef.   I have always liked the venue.  Great views, big tables with a lot of room between them.  It was a good sign when I had trouble getting a Friday reservation.  They were booked solid until 8:30. 

We had a great table with both a view of the boats as well as into the open kitchen where they were grilling fish.  They opened our rose that we brought ($10 corkage.) We were very optimistic on how the evening was going to go. 

We started with the Fruits de Mer Platter.  It was described as a chilled platter of six raw oysters, four cherrystone clams on the half shell, four ponzu sashimi sea scallops. four chilled wild prawns, and a half pound of Alaskan King crab legs.  For only $39.95, this sounded like a great deal.  We had requested that they give us all Blue Point oysters, wanting to take advantage of these typically hard to get NY babies.  This caused much confusion in the kitchen, but they eventually told us they straightened it out.

The dish came out nicely presented on two stacked platters with lots of ice.  Accompaniments were a great cocktail sauce topped with chopped horseradish and a nice mignonette that contained bits of sweet onion and was perfectly biting. 

We quickly saw they did not give us all blue points, but decided to just let it go.   In order from best to worst:  The cherrystones were beautiful.  Great salinity, perfect texture.  Extremely fresh.  The king crab was tender with great flavor.  I am not sure if it was acquired fresh and not frozen, but it tasted that way.  The prawns were firm, crunchy, and delicate in flavor.  The oysters actually disappointed.  A bit too fishy, not as fresh as I would have liked.  But being that (some of them) were shipped from NY and we are in a month without an R, I guess I should not complain.  BUt I have had better oysters in the last two weeks at both Anisette and Chez Melange, so I do think they could have done better.  The scallops themselves were very nice. THey were served in scallop shells swimming in ponzu and seaweed salad.  I thought the very dark brown ponzu they used kinda had an unappetizing appearance.  And the seaweed salad was too sweet and overpowered the delicate scallop.  It didn’t work. 

We continued with more clams (mmm) and then “snacked” on a few other dishes.  My favorite dish there has always been the bucket of clams (Steamer pot of manilla clams with white wine, garlic, and butter).  They have incredible sour dough bread.  Served warm, it has a crackly crust and a soft, sour center that tastes incredible dipped in the clam broth.  Great value for $15.25.

Manhattan clam chowder (supposedly homemade) was lousy.  Bland, too much celery, only flakes of clam. 

The arugula and atlantic red crab salad was ok, nothing remarkable about it.

We did not get to try any of the cooked fish dishes, but we do want to go back and try them soon.

http://www.bluewatergrill.com/locations/redondo_beach.htm

665 North Harbor Drive
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
Tel: (310) 318-FISH (3474)
Fax: (310) 374-9424

HOURS
Mon-Thurs 11.30am – 10pm
Fri – Sat 11.30am – 11pm
Sun 10am – 10pm