Bonefish Grill

As is our habit, my wife Ginger and I go out to dinner most Friday nights. This past Friday I took the recommendation of a co-worker and made reservations at the Bonefish Grill in Schaumburg, Illinois. This chain restaurant claims establishments in about thirty states with Florida having the most locations, which isn't surprising since Bonefish Grill was started in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2000. Ginger remembers visiting one of their restaurants when she worked in Florida and enjoyed it.
Entering through a revolving door we were immediately impressed by a long bar along one wall on the right and booths along the wall opposite the bar. High top tables with chairs facing the bar on one side of the table and facing the opposite wall on the other side were spaced about two feet apart, in the center of the room, separating the bar and the booths. This was a space separate from the eating area which we could glimpse from the front door. Our reservations were for 7:00 PM and we had arrived 15 minutes early. We were shown immediately to a table and we asked if we could sit at a booth instead. They accommodated us and sat us at a booth next to the window overlooking their outdoor space that had six tables and a view of the mall and park nearby. The place was bustling but not full. The server and wait staff all wore chef coats with the Bonefish Grill "fish skeleton" logo which contributed to the overall atmosphere of a clean and efficient kitchen and dining room. The tables were close together and certainly not an intimate setting but it is not an unpleasant environment. I don't recall our waitress' name and I'm not sure she told me.
We ordered wine from a sparse wine list and were surprised that their menu on their national web site shows a Ferrari-Carano Alexander Valley Chardonnay yet it is missing from the local menu of wines. Disappointing..... as my wife and I both know and enjoy Ferrari-Carano chardonnay. I ordered the Coppola Diamond Series Cab while Ginger ordered the Rosemont Chardonnay (Australia). She likes the crisp and clean Australian style of chardonnay. The waitress took the order and disappeared into the bar. She came back without our drinks and began to take the order of a table next to us that had eight people seated there. (One Mississippi...two Mississippi). The folks at the other table were asking questions about the menu as most people do and it was taking some time to get the order. (Three Mississippi... four Mississippi). Finally she has the order and takes the ticket to the kitchen. (Five Mississippi....six Mississippi). She reappears and walks to the bar and retrieves our drinks at somewhere around 600 Mississippi. One whiff and sip of my wine was enough to tell me that it was from a bottle that had been opened for longer than a couple of days. The waitress returned after a few minutes and asked if the wine was okay. I told her no and explained my suspicion and she offered to have the bartender open another bottle. I accepted and off she went to get another glass of wine. Now I have to stop here and describe a curious little process as it regards the pouring of the wine. Other restaurants have also started to do this as well and I find it odd and annoying. Instead of our wine arriving already in the glass as I am accustomed, the waitress arrives with our wine in two small carafes and two empty wine glasses. It seems to me that this doubles the amount of glassware the bartender has to keep and clean. She pours the wine into the glasses at our table and off the mini carafes go back to the bar. I can think of only one logical explanation (I'm sure somebody can come up with others) and that is to control the amount of pour as the wine in both carafes were right to the shoulder of the carafe. No less. No more. I asked why and our waitress said she actually liked the arrangement as it was easier to carry the wine to the table. I tasted the fresh glass and told her it was fine and "it really isn't a terrific wine." As she apologized I told her it wasn't her fault but that of the wine maker. As she left to let me and Ginger decide on an appetizer, Ginger flashed a grin and pleaded with me to be nice and that I was intimidating the poor woman serving us. I promised I would behave and we chose the calamari for our appetizer and we were praised by the waitress for our obvious good sense. After turning in our food order she came back to the table with dipping oil and a wonderful hot, fresh baked bread. I was hungry and this was a welcome pre-appetizer.
Our calamari arrived in a medium bowl with a tablespoon for serving along with a sauce that wasn't the typical Italian accompaniment. As we sat and stared at the bowl Ginger and I reached the same conclusion simultaneously..... The waitress had forgotten the plates and forks. (Here we go again One Mississippi.....two Mississippi). The manager making his rounds spied the forgotten utensils and immediately detoured to the kitchen only to emerge to our waitress discovering the same thing. As she turned to go to the kitchen she was intercepted by the manager and a hand-off was executed mid stride.....Bottom line we got the plates and forks and enjoyed the calamari with a delightful Asian inspired Thai sweet sauce. Totally liked the sauce with the calamari and even dipped a little of the bread in the sauce as well. Next I ordered the lump crap corn chowder. Now I'm a sucker for chowder....any chowder. I like seafood stew (chowder), clam chowder and especially corn chowder. How could you go wrong with crab and corn married in a thick creamy chowder base?....the answer..... you can't! Absolute creamy goodness with a well balanced sweetness of the corn coupled with the richness of the crab. I would order this again in a heartbeat. Okay so far they are batting two for two despite a few hiccups with the plates and such. Ginger ordered the Ahi Tuna, and steamed broccoli as a side, while I ordered the center cut sirloin and garlic mashed potatoes. The vegetable of the day was their house succotash. One word for the bacon fat prepared succotash....YUK!! This should never appear on a plate of food ever again. It was a greasy, flavorless mess.
Now what I want to know is, if this is a seafood restaurant where are the other fish? Salmon, tilapia, sea bass, tuna, rainbow trout are all that are on the menu. Conspicuous in their absence is snapper, grouper, perch, walleye, halibut and cod. To make matters worse when Ginger's tuna arrived it was clear that it was not fresh and may have been thawed for at least a day or two. Ginger is a tuna lover and I have to say she did not love this tuna. The taste and texture that Ginger enjoys were missing according to her. The taste she gave me bears out that fact. Not as good as it could have been and certainly not a dish a seafood restaurant should get wrong. To make matters worse the broccoli was dripping with butter and that isn't Ginger's style either. She would just as soon have it without anything on it or have the waitress ask permission before it's drenched in milk fat or margarine, garlic, pepper or anything else. So now the score is two out of three. My steak would be the deciding factor. Disregard the succotash....It shouldn't be there and I'm not going to judge my dish from a tablespoon of misguided veggies. The steak was tender, juicy and flavorful. I almost thought they made a mistake and gave me a tenderloin instead but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Great steak! Clearly the guy working the meat station knows how to fire a piece of meat. What I found out of place was an aupoive cream sauce even though there were no peppercorns on my steak. Hmmmm, they must make a batch of it ahead of time instead of in the pan that the steak was done in.... Of course if the steak was done on a grill as I think it was they have to have another method to make the aupoive sauce. All in all a very satisfactory and tasty steak. The garlic mashed potatoes were okay and were a good counterpoint to the rest of the plate. Final score 3 out of 4 with a negative note about the succotash and wine so maybe 2 1/2 out of 4 would be more accurate.
All in all this is a decent family restaurant that could push the envelope a little. The servers and wait staff need to pick up the pace and timing. They need to remember what orders are at what stage and what takes time. The tuna needs to be improved and an expanded wine list would be welcome. Ginger and I crave a decent seafood restaurant like Davis Street Fish Market in Evanston, Illinois and late of Schaumburg. It was our favorite place and we shall continue to seek out another seafood gem. Bonefish Grill isn't in the same league but it could be if they were to up the ante with choices in seafood, install a live bar, expand their wine list and train their staff to be more attentive to customer needs.

http://www.bonefishgrill.com/