San Marcos Hooked on Fish House Vera Cruz

The San Marcos Restaurant Row was the first in the county to be built by design; a few others have been constructed since, but most rows simply spring up as the chance results of locations hot enough to draw several establishments.

In proximity, restaurants sometimes produce a fission-like effect that breeds more business for everybody, and that certainly would seem to have been the case with the San Marcos row, which boasts a reasonably full parking lot nearly every night. With all the business has come a fair degree of wear and tear, and at this point some refurbishment seems in order.

Among the most popular and longest-running establishments, the Fish House Vera Cruz also looks somewhat in need of a face-lift. The rustic, woodsy interior, the inspiration of a restaurant age that has passed (the 1970s, to be precise) has a charm of sorts but tends to seem dark.

There is no disputing that the fresh Gerbera daisies on the tables show a touch of concern for the guests’ comfort, but a hostess on a recent visit handed a diner a menu that was stained and torn. Menus, like tablecloths, require changing every so often. No complaints about the service, which was bright, smooth and entirely pleasant.

The format at this sizable eatery hasn’t changed a whit since its inception, and, judging by the size of the clientele, no change seems necessary.

The two key ingredients are seafood and hotly burning mesquite, brought briefly in proximity on oversized barbecue grills.

Guests may watch the cooking proceed through the broad display windows that separate kitchen and dining room. The restaurant, having had more than a decade to hone the process, turns out a fairly basic but consistently tasty product that on average seems moist, and but mildly perfumed by the mesquite.

This desert hardwood, misused, can have a disagreeably insistent flavor, but Vera Cruz knows how to moderate the effect.

The standing menu lists a few options--skewers of oysters, shrimp and scallops, catfish and cod filets--but the daily selection offers a far greater range, and, on the whole, seems to carry a greater guarantee of freshness.

Some of the items are caught by the restaurant’s boat, the Veracruz, which according to menu notes prowls the Pacific from Alaska to the tip of Baja California, with occasional detours to the Sea of Cortez and Hawaii.

Recent choices from local waters have been halibut, swordfish and a yellowtail that, a notation specified, was caught between San Diego and the Coronado Islands. That makes it just about local enough to vote.

Asked for a suggestion, the waitress firmly recommended the swordfish as the best of the lot and, if cut a little oddly (it was rectangular in shape, while a triangular cut would seem more typical), it certainly had a fine, fresh flavor and flesh that flaked but retained its moisture.

With this and other offerings, the kitchen employed an old-fashioned trick, probably learned in military mess kitchens, that dates back to a more naive period in American cooking and calls for dusting the fish heavily with paprika. The chief goal seems to be the addition of color, but of course a flavor is imparted as well, and in these days of really fresh fish that need no disguising, the practice should be discarded.

A guest chose the mahi mahi, treated identically to the swordfish and every bit as good. The flavor, a little more intense, was full and aggressive in a way that really engaged the taste buds, but was not overpowering.

Other choices from the impressive daily list included Coho salmon, monk fish, New Zealand John Dory, golden tilapia, petrale sole, ahi and whitefish from Lake Superior, whence comes, as everyone knows, truly superior whitefish.

Plates arrive more or less crammed with food. Entrees include the choice of three side dishes drawn from an ultra-basic list that offers green salad; good, tangy cole slaw; the dreaded “rice pilaf” of Southern California restaurant cookery; the house “Romano” potatoes and a steamed vegetable, recently very, very forgettable sliced carrots.

The potatoes, almost mashed in texture and scooped from giant casseroles, are studded with bits of pimento and flavored with what seems more like blue cheese than Romano. You wouldn’t want them every day, but they’re OK with the fish.

Fish House

Vera Cruz

1020 W. San Marcos Blvd., San Marcos

Calls: 744-8000

Hours: Lunch and dinner daily

Cost: Entrees $6.95 to $19.95; dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $20 to $50