Redeemed Oceanaire

Perhaps bad luck, but Sharon and I never seemed to had had a good meal at Oceanaire.  This is particularly strange, because we are seafood lovers and people really talk well of this place.  And it is not for lack of trying.  We have been there probably three or four times prior to our last visit, including a cooking class organized by Kitchen Window.

We had tickets to see Riverdance as their more recent tour brought them to downtown Minneapolis (a show, by the way that I enjoyed far more the first time and somewhat bored me this last time), and looking for a place to have dinner we decided to give Oceanaire a last shot before writing it off forever.

 Our reservation gave us just one hour to eat before we had to leave for the show.  We ordered some very good oysters (for which outside of freshens I will give no credit to any restaurant, since all you have to do is shuck them) and then shared a tuna tartar that I felt was very good.

For the main course, I ordered seared tuna with a piece of foie gras and a port reduction.  Foie gras is in my opinion a way to cheat on a dish.  How can it not be great with foie gras!?!  That said, the tuna was nicely cooked.  I thought it was unnecessarily large, but rather complain of an expensive meal being too big than too small.  The sauce was good but a little oily.

Sharon ordered the best dish of the evening.  A piece of halibut crusted with sesame seeds over a soft, velvety sauce.

The meal was not bad and the service was pretty good.  Still, when the bill came (just over $200 with tax and tip), you can't shake the feeling that we've had much better meals (including dessert and port) for the same money.  Alma is a good local example of a place that offers consistently great meals at the same or a lower cost.

So while the quality of the meal was enough to redeem Oceanaire from our past experiences, I think we will still be writing if off from our list of places to go to based on the cost/value proposition.  There are too many great places in Minneapolis to keep giving this place an opportunity to do better.  I hate avoiding a seafood restaurant that is so close to home, but this is just not worth it.