Riverboat Sails on Uneven Keel

Forgive the lame cliche, but this restaurant misses the boat. Set in a terrific Newport Harbor location, the Riverboat Restaurant has all the ingredients of a great restaurant. But somebody needs to stir up the pot.

Sunday brunch on a boat should be a lot more fun than the experience we had recently. The Riverboat is certainly not a bad restaurant; it has a lot going for it: a large, comfortable, nautical-themed dining room; above-average food; a pleasant acoustic guitarist who alternates with a steel drum musician; perhaps the best view of Newport Harbor around; and a full bar that serves Bloody Marys and Ramos fizzes for brunch.

It’s also nifty to watch the pelicans preening on the pilings outside the windows. What it needs are a more imaginative menu, more adventurous cooking, outdoor seating and livelier music. Think New Orleans, jazz, Mardi Gras. With Bourbon Street festivity and better cuisine, this restaurant could really kick it up a notch. Bam! Somebody call Emeril.

Manager Daryl Stokeling says the new year will bring about some changes. Planned are outdoor, buffet-style brunches and improvements on service. Few menu changes are expected, he says, because the Riverboat attracts a crowd that prefers mild, traditional fare.

Sunday brunch includes lunch or breakfast entrees. We focused on the breakfasts, the bulk of which are egg dishes. The seafood omelet had a nice crab and shrimp filling and came topped with Swiss cheese and hollandaise sauce. I liked the whipped butter for the sourdough toast and the tasty home-fried potatoes. Also good were the huevos rancheros on red corn tortillas, with beans and spicy guacamole.

The all-melon fruit accompaniment was ho-hum, but the eggs and fresh salsa were well made. We also liked the eggs Florentine--English muffins topped with spinach, tomato, bacon, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce, but we were disappointed with the “malted” waffles that tasted a little like Eggos with syrup.

The Riverboat earned high marks for salads, however. Both the Caesar, with its tart dressing and blackened chicken, and the delicious spinach salad, with candied walnuts and blue cheese, were excellent. Also good was the gumbo (in cup or bowl) with chorizo and red beans.

But desserts brought more disappointment. The macadamia nut ice cream with chocolate sauce was woefully stingy with nuts and sauce; the blueberry cobbler was cold and bland.

The Riverboat’s nod to New Orleans is clearer in the lunch dishes--Mardi Gras shrimp salad; a Louisiana-style poor-boy sandwich stuffed with thinly sliced roast beef, mushrooms and Swiss cheese; red beans and rice; and Cajun crab cakes with papaya compote.

Perhaps the best way to end a meal here is order another Bloody Mary and toast the new year and its promise of a new and improved Riverboat.

*

The Riverboat Restaurant, 151 E. Coast Highway, Newport Beach. (949) 673-3425. Sunday brunch served 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Prices range from $6 to $15 but mostly around $9 without beverage.