Dining Out: Hard to beat for charbroiled fish
If you are searching for an eclectic fish menu, you would be hard pressed to find one more appealing than Fish Dish Grill Burbank.
You can choose from fish and chips to fish tacos or fish burritos, fish salad entrees, fish dish bowls or 13 different charbroiled fish dinners.
It is next door to the entrance of Bob Hope Airport in a newer strip mall that includes eight restaurants and not enough lunchtime parking. Fish Dish has a new menu that is not yet posted to its website. Fried clams are no longer on the menu. They just didn’t sell, according to one of the servers.
The clam chowder is good. It could use a few more clams, but the herbs give it a nice taste. The Cajun Ahi tuna is fantastic. It is seared perfectly with a nice little afterbite. The Fish Dish’s charbroiled fish is upscale. It’s hard to believe you get this quality in a strip-mall restaurant. The line cooks have to be good to hit seared Ahi that well. The charbroiler menu ranges in price from $7.45 for the white roughy to $12.95 for the halibut. All charbroiler items are served Cajun style or with Fish Dish’s garlic butter sauce and they come with tasty coleslaw, bread and a choice of brown rice, white rice or fries.
I had the fish (a pollock) from the deep fryer. It was undercooked and the crust was overdone. It looked as though it was fried frozen. Fish Dish has a number of other deep fryer plates including catfish, which I love. Everything else was so good that I wish I could have sampled some other deep fryer plates. You can’t go wrong if you stick to the grill and stay away from the fried dishes.
My wife had the grilled shrimp burrito ($6.95) that was quite good, and it too had a nice kick to it. It is more like a wrap than a burrito. There are six burrito choices (grilled chicken, fried fish, catfish, grilled Mahi Mahi, grilled salmon and shrimp) ranging in price from $5.45 to $6.95. They contain cilantro rice, cabbage, tomatoes, cilantro, onions, cheese and chipotle sauce. The tacos run from $1.95 for a grilled chicken taco to $2.95 for a shrimp taco.
The competition in the strip mall is tough (McDonald’s, Subway, Panda Express, SanSai and a Greek restaurant), but after a year, the crowds are still coming to Fish Dish. The day I was there for lunch, the line was out the door at 1:30 and still going strong when I left at 2 p.m. And it was a Tuesday.
I’ll be back. Eating fish is healthy and there are at least 10 other items on the menu I can’t wait to try.
Infobox
What: Fish Dish Grill Burbank
Where: 2575 N. Hollywood Way, Unit 106, Burbank
When: 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday
Prices: From $2.75 to $12.95
Contact: (818) 847-1310 or visit www.fishdishgrill.com