Bonefish Grill is the latest member of the massive Outback Steakhouse chain to appear in the Valley. The company, which also owns Carrabba's and Roy's, opened its first Nevada Bonefish location in Henderson, so for those of you in Vegas who don't want to make the trek, there may be one near you soon—if the first one performs up to expectations.
I'm predicting it will. Even though a few of the sauces (conceived in a boardroom, no doubt) are overly sweet, and a few things need to be tweaked, this concept has a lot going for it. It's essentially a seafood house, but there are pastas, steaks from the grill and a raft of terrific appetizers, all at a price aimed at families.
It's an attractive place, to boot. It's a free-standing restaurant, divided into a bar area with tables and a main dining room, with a nicely polished hardwood floor. A rear wall has a chic backdrop with metal fish sculptures, and the long, comfortable booths can accommodate up to six. The lighting is soft, and jazzy riffs play on a subtly concealed sound system.
Service is accommodating—perhaps overly so, the sort where the young team tells you enthusiastically what their favorite dishes are, even when you don't care. Oh, well. At least they are well-turned-out. Their uniforms resemble white Mao jackets, buttoned up to the neck.
The food: First, you get a wire basket filled with warm, crusty bread, and then your server will pour some extra-virgin olive oil into a dish, where a daub of homemade pesto awaits. It makes a nice dipping sauce, delicious on the bread. Another nice touch: the sea salt and peppercorns on the table.
Try one of the cute house martinis, such as one made with mango and pomegranate, and it's a good beginning.
Appetizers are a strong suit here. The so-called signature dish, Bang Bang Shrimp, first struck me as a bit cloying but grew on me. The menu calls it "tender, crispy shrimp in a creamy, spicy sauce," but what you get is a tall stack of flour-dredged shrimp that have been deep-fried and coated with a sweet, chili-laced mayo. In the end, it was hard to stop eating them.
Crab cakes are fine, too, tasty and on the crisp side; the Cajun chicken egg roll is crispest, two diagonally cut egg rolls yielding four pieces, served with a creamy remoulade and a sweet chili sauce.
Bonefish also does a credible job with ahi tuna sashimi, served lightly seared around the edges and crusted with black-and-white sesame. The dish, accompanied by sliced, pickled ginger and wasabi, is a lot like what you'd get at Nobu, and frankly, I'm amazed at how mainstream it has become.
Main courses consist of grilled fresh fish, a few sauté items, grilled meats and one or two pastas. There is also the option to have one of the four house sauces with your fish, although the dirty little secret here is that the server will gladly let you try them all at no extra charge. They are, in order of best to worst, lemon butter, warm mango salsa, lime tomato garlic and Pan-Asian, a sugary soy concoction that might be good on ice cream.
I'd order Gulf grouper again, but not the tasteless tilapia, and never the farmed Atlantic salmon, which I wish would disappear from local menus. Rainbow trout comes sautéed, crusted with pistachios and Parmesan cheese, and it's pretty okay. As for chicken portabella mushroom pasta, all I can say is, bring the entire family. My wife and I split one, and we ate about 30 percent.
I only tried one meat from the grill, a 9-ounce filet mignon onto which I added, for $1.50, a fine Gorgonzola garlic sauce; as befits an Outback affiliate, it was more than adequate. On the side, I had a nice steamed-vegetable medley including asparagus, and some lumpy garlic mashed potatoes, also done with skill.
Save room for dessert. For $8, the bananas Foster is hard to beat. The sauce is rich and buttery, the bananas warm and sticky, and the ice cream cold and creamy.
But they do beat it, with the deep-dish Key lime pie, which tastes better than most of the ones I've tried in Key West. The secret? A custardy yellow filling made with the juice of real Key lime, which is yellow, not green. Add a thick graham-cracker crust and gobs of fresh whipped cream, and you've got a killer dessert. There's a concept that you don't need a boardroom to validate.