LITTLE ROCK — Folks who write about restaurants get a lot of requests for recommendations and advice:
“Where should I take my mom for Mother’s Day brunch?” “Can you suggest a place with a party room that seats at least 45 where we can hold our wedding rehearsal dinner?” “Where’s a good place to go for seafood?”
Once upon a time, not too very long ago, the response to the last question was a head shake and a rueful “Red Lobster.” Because Little Rock is several hundred miles from salt water and, although a number of places, like Cajun’s Wharf, offered seafood as part of an overall eclectic menu, we really didn’t have a seafood restaurant per se.
But then would come the follow-up: “Wait a minute. The Terrace usually has a couple of pretty good fish dishes on the menu.”
It’s true. Jerry Barakat’s first Little Rock eatery - back when it was a Greek restaurant in a shopping center storefront, and even now that it’s the upscale Terrace Mediterranean Kitchen - has always had acouple of good fish dishes on the menu.
Now, of course, when fresh fish, or at least flash-frozen fish, is readily accessible at a modest, if not inexpensive, price, lots of places have a couple of good fish dishes on the menu. But with the exception of the chain places - Red Lobster and Bonefish Grill - Little Rock still hasn’t had a really good seafood restaurant per se.
Until now. Barakat has thrown out a life preserver to the seafood-starved in central Arkansas by adding to Arthur’s, his high-end west Little Rock steakhouse, a high-end seafood restaurant cum-sushi bar, which he calls Oceans at Arthur’s.
Oceans isn’t cheap - you’d be suspicious of genuine seafood that is. So the prices are about on par with those of the steakhouse next door in the Village at Rahling Road, just off Chenal Parkway. Dinner for two, including appetizers and entrees, eschewing dessert and even wine, could put you well past $100.
But the prices are actually modest compared to the competition. The market price for the raw-bar Chilled Seafood Platter, for example - several plump “jumbo” shrimp, a couple of gussiedup mussels, a pair of plump Virginia oysters each topped with a different type of sushi-bar caviar, some cold Alaskan king crab legs and a good-size grilled lobster tail - came to $35.
That’sconsiderably less than what we’ve paid for a very similar assemblage at So in Hillcrest.
And that’s pretty much true of most of what’s on the surprisingly extensive menu. Leaving out the sushi, for which pretty mucheverybody charges similar prices, Barakat meets or undercuts most of his competitors on grilled fish, raw-bar items and surf and turf while offering unusually large portions.
Since we first got a look at Oceans a few months ago, when he was struggling to get the place open, Barakat has added a few elements to his Oceans atmosphere so that it no longer looks, as it once did, to have been inspired by Red Lobster. The color scheme remains mostly blue, but the layout and the decor happily lack that quasi-Early American Pier look. (All the charm of old wood stays on the other side of the passdoor that connects Oceans to Arthur’s.)
Seating is at round and rectangular granite-topped tables and banquette-booths, with blue-and-white place mats covering the cold stone that just about match the sizeof the rectangular plates on which entrees come.
A chalkboard on the south wall describes specials and features; behind the raw bar is one that lists the oysters of the day; behind and in front of the sushi bar others brag about particular fish.
A couple of flat-screen TVs carry sports programming, a holdover from one or more restaurant-bars that have occupied this particular batch of square footage in the past. (That includes Barakat-eries called Sesame, Jasmine/Sesame, Jerry B’s and, most recently, the lingering vestiges of Gaucho’s Grill, which Barakat is in the process of moving back upstairs into its originalspace.)
So $35 is a bit steep for an opening act, but you can spend less than half that, or even a fifth of that, among the raw-bar/shellfish/starters choices.
Barakat and his staff areproud of - and rather pushy about - the Char-Grilled NOLA Oysters ($14), a half dozen oysters of your choice (for a New Orleans namesake, we picked Gulf over bluepoints and Virginia), grill-baked in the shell with cheese and garlic butter.
Intrepid Companion, a big fan of crab legs but not much of a shellfish fan otherwise, couldn’t get past the texture, which was still sort of half-raw but sufficiently pleasing to an oyster fan.We tasted no evidence of actual char-grilling, but the cheese-garlic coating was worthwhile on the oysters and worth dipping with accompanying elongated toasted baguette points.
Oceans does as well or better with its Steamed Mussels ($16), roughly two-dozen, steamed with white wine, butter (rather too much, actually) and lemon - and also capers,the discovery of which explained a briny sub-tang that initially puzzled us.
Out of the sushi bar came a real appetizer winner: Tuna Tataki ($14), with chunks of fresh Ahi tuna, accented with a vinegary-garlicky ponzu sauce and radish sprouts, atop chunks of - woo hoo! - watermelon for a nice spicytangy-sweet palate palette.
Intrepid Companion, of course, headed right for the Snow Crab Leg Boil ($25), a goodly portion of meaty crab legs served hot in a bettertasting boil than the salty one used for the cold legs on the chilled seafood platter. Those, at least, came pre-split; these required a bit of muscle to extract the sweet crab meat.The menu mentions the side offerings of corn on the cob and uninspiring “Cajun potatoes”; it doesn’t mention the couple of spicy sausage links, a very pleasant surprise, unless that’s what makes the potatoes Cajun.
We were likewise surprised, likewise pleasantly, by the large number (six) ofthe Grilled Atlantic Sea Scallops ($21), on a lively bed of sliced apples, red and yellow bell peppers, big white beans and grilled onions, with a side of mild basmati rice. The scallops were delightfully seasoned, though a couple were a little chewy.
Blackened Tilapia ($16) came in a “spicy cream” sauce that was more subtle than spicy, but not so subtle as to be bland. Side items include green beans (actually haricots verts) and more basmati rice.
Our most rave-worthy entree was the Chipotle Grilled Swordf ish ($21), a f irm, bronzed, diamond-shaped filet with great mouth feel and just enough chipotle to give our palate just the right slight buzz so that we didn’t need to disturb the grilled lime.There was a chipotle drizzle on the side of the plate, and the kitchen unintentionally let a little chipotle leach into the dressing on the side fresh baby spinach. Even better was the zingy, underlying couscous. (If you have been searching for good couscous, you’ll find it here.)
From the sushi bar, we ordered two rolls with fried innards that we sort of felt went together: OMG ($8.50), spicy tuna, avocado and spicy aioli, and the really good Godzilla roll ($12), spicy tuna, salmon, red snapper and scallions topped with spicy crab and eel sauce. (Served on the same plate, they became sort of an OMGodzilla.) Both rolls were wrapped a little loosely by our experience, and we thought the former was a little bland, more OKG than OMG. And yes, the sushi bar does have Uni (seaurchin) - at market price.
There are a few menu concessions to lower-end seafood consumers - Jeev’s Fish and Chips ($12), for example. And while there’s no steak on the menu (Barakatquite rightly figures if you wanted steak, you’d head next door), there are also a few concessions to nonseafood-eaters, including pork chops, roast and fried chicken, meat sandwiches and some high-end burgers and sliders.
Oceans’ wine-sake-martini list is about as extensive as the menu (on which it is the opposite side). We don’t normally recommend specific wines, but we discovered the Twisted River Late Harvest Riesling from Germany ($7 glass, $26 bottle) stood up exceptionally well to just about everything seafood we ate except perhaps the Godzilla roll.
Barakat drills his staffs well and service, though it differed markedly in style between our two visits, was generally good. Our second waitress was a little tentative; we had to ask her for minor additions, such as fresh silverware and extra side plates.
Our first waitress, though she was there regularly to remove dead shells, pushed specif ic appetizers and desserts as though her life depended on our ordering them. (Really, we don’t object to a little bit of upselling, one way restaurants make money - and we do want the good ones to make money. But gee, by the fourth time you’ve mentioned the oysters and the fifth time you’ve mentioned the chocolate cake, that lack of customer enthusiasm should give you a pretty good clue to back off.)Oceans at Arthur’s
Address: 27 Rahling Circle,
Little Rock
Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 4-
9:30 p.m. Monday-Thurs
day, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 4-10:30
p.m. Friday-Saturday, 10:30
a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday (brunch
buffet, 10:30-2:30)
Cuisine: Seafood, sushi,
raw bar
Credit cards: V, MC, AE, D
Alcoholic beverages: Full
bar
Reservations: Large par
ties
Wheelchair accessible: Yes
Carryout: Yes
(501) 821-1838
arthursprimesteakhouse.
com
Weekend, Pages 31 on 07/26/2012