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Pacific Catch makes stylish seafood dishes
Summary: Pacific Catch, which opened in September, may be the most unusual fish house in Marin. Many of the dishes are glossed with flavors from around the Pacific Rim. No menu item is over $20, and there are four or five fresh fish, most of them wild caught, each day to supplement the well-designed list of large bowls, starters, snacks, sandwiches and full plates. The decor is warm, comfortable and informal; outside patio dining clusters around a cheery fireplace.
Pacific Catch could well be a model for the West Coast fish house of the 21st century. It’s a lively restaurant with consciously cheery and comfortable d}cor, low prices,and large portions of cleverly thought-out dishes that pay homage to Pacific Rim cultures.
It opened in mid-September in the site that was formerly Fresh Choice. Since then, the restaurant has been building a steady customer base for lunches and dinners. After a recent meal there, I can see why.
There’s much to appreciate about Pacific Catch. It’s not haute cuisine – it’s good cooking, with some terrific touches and creative choices. Once a few glitches are fixed, I expect it will become one of the best hangouts for a nutritious and interesting meal in the county.
I love the palette of deep ocean blues and cranberry reds against cream-painted walls. The colors pop in plush booth seating, tiling and eight paintings of Pacific Rim fish that jazz up two of the walls. The large space is somewhat assymetrical. It’s tempting to peer around corners and walk through the room just to see what’s going on. A long counter at the far end is fronted with tall-backed stools that look onto the open kitchen. Solo diners can enjoy a meal or a quick snack here, while they watch the action at the stoves.
Overall, the tone is casual. Golden wood, unclothed tables sport metal buckets filled with chopsticks, ketchup bottles, soy sauce and other condiments that play to the laid-back California/Pacific Rim theme. For outdoor dining, there’s a large patio on Town Center’s walkway, with a roaring fireplace at its heart.
I like the menu. It’s divided into sections, which include Sushi, Starters, Mis Soups, Hot Sandwiches, Island Tacos, rice Bowls, Meal-Sized Salads (they are huge), Fish and Chips and House Special Entrees. Each night there are four or five fresh fish, typically wild-caught, which can be prepared in one of four styles: Hawaiian, Japanese, Baja BBQ and Simple California Grill.
California Roll here ($6.50 from the Sushi menu) was excellent, better than I’ve found in many dedicated Japanese restaurants. Eight fat pieces were packed with plenty of fresh crab, avocado and cucumber slices rolled together with just enough rice for balance. Brown rice can be substituted for white.
I loved the crisp, crumbly crust on four Mahi Mahi fingers ($7.95), served with mango salsa, daikon salad and drizzled with lime cream. These would have been even better with the lime cream on the side, for dipping. Drizzled as it was, the crust softened and lost its snap. The mango salsa, in particular, was bright, fresh, and a perfect compliment to the fish.
Clams Miso ($4.95), was a generous bowl of tawny, rich-flavored broth with green onions, bits of tofu and plenty of baby clams. Typically, miso soups are not this packed with ingredients; as a result, this miso soup is a light meal in itself.
One of the chalkboard specials was wild-caught Corvina, a type of sea bass from Mexico. I ordered it Japanese style ($17.95). The presentation was terrific. A large plate sported a fragrant mound of firm-textured white rice bristling with a toupee of black nori strips. There was a scoop of marinated, tangy/sweet bean threads and a portion of Japanese-style oshitashi, cool moist spinach salad with shaved bonita.
Where the dish fell down was in overkill; the sweet, white Corvina was drowned in teriyaki sauce. For true Japanese style, this delicate fish should have been gently calligraphed with it and quickly seared so that only a thin amount of sauce pointed up the Corvina’s subtlety. I should add that it was cooked beautifully, juicy and flaky, so the oversaucing seemed that much more frustrating.
Hawaiian Barbecue Surf & Turf ($18.95, and the most expensive dish on the menu) is a lot of food. You get two skewers with eight shrimp, grilled to a moist pop under just the right amount of a citrus-soy glaze. There was also a grilled and marinated sliced skirt steak, presented overcooked for our taste, as our server forgot to ask us how we wanted it cooked, and we forgot to ask. Still, the meat flavor shone through under a sauce that tasted similar to teriyaki. The shrimp and meat came with a big pile of delicious sweet potato French fries, all crisp, yammy and just sweet enough to enhance the protein. Cole slaw – refreshing, mild-flavored and spiked with sesame seeds – was a good teammate.
If you want simple, choose one of the fishes of the day prepared as Simple California Grill ($17.95). In this combo, the fish is served with slow-roasted tomato and lemon confit, grilled artichoke, basil aioli and steamed brown rice.
I saw many customers tucking into huge Rice Bowls, which range in price from $11.95 to $13.95. These are great value. Wasabi Bowls consist of wasabi-spiked rice topped with wakame salad, sliced avocado, daikon sprouts, cucumber, pickled ginger, sesame seeds, shredded nori and soy-wasabi sauce, topped with ahi tuna, ahi poke, grilled fresh salmon, California crab salad or barbecued unagi. Teriyaki bowls are served with asparagus, glazed shiitake mushrooms, grilled bok choy, sesame seeds and sake-teriyaki sauce over pineapple fried rice; they come with salmon, mahi mahi, chiken breast, skewered shrimp, grilled skirt steak or marinated tofu.
Salads, topped with a choice of various fresh fish, steak, chicken or tofu, are served over organic spring greens. Side flavors vary, depending on what you pick as your protein.
There are seafood classics here as well. The Fish & Chips category offers five types of fish to choose from and a choice of sweet potato or traditional potato French fries. Baja-style tacos, perfect for a snack and wrapped in soft tortillas, offer Mexican flavors in a category five choices, all $3.50 or less.
Desserts are made in-house. I loved the Tropical Fruit Napoleon ($5.95). Thin slices of unsweetened, wafer-thin fried wonton skins were layered with lime curd and small chunks of fresh mango and pineapple. It was at once bracing, tangy, mildly sweet and tremendously refreshing after the rich entrees we ordered.
Our server seemed enthusiastic, and while he forgot a few things, such as flatware (we made do with chopsticks until we could get knives and forks), he knew the menu well. He accurately described different dishes and the characteristics of the nights’ fresh fish offerings, which made it easier for us to choose.
Corte Madera’s Pacific Catch is the grown-up version of the small Pacific Catch on Chestnut Street in San Francisco. They’re owned by Keith Cox of Belvedere and executive chef Aaron Noveshen, who lives in San Francisco. (Cox founded, built, then sold, the World Wrapps chain.) These guys are onto something. If this is the prototype for a possible chain, Fresh Catch has my vote as a potential winner. There’s a lot to like here and truly something for almost any dietary need. If the kitchen lightens up on the sauces or serves them on the side, the top-notch fish they’re serving will sparkle. They’re already using great ingredients and combinations that, in spite of being inventive, taste down-to-earth and familiar as well. If you think of fish as comfort food, this restaurant delivers it in a myriad of ways.
Leslie Harlib
Marin Independent Journal
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