Topside by NDMK — Restaurant in Avalon

This place opened fairly recently and still has some things to work out.

The hostess wasn't at the front but her and another quickly approached and we were seated quickly. The restaurant was pretty empty which I thought was surprising for a Saturday night. We waited between 5 and 10 mins before someone stopped by and asked if we had been helped, we said no and they said they would be with us shortly. After they came back I asked about the fresh catch fish, which they weren't positive on for their 2 tapas dishes. I ended up asking for the tartare and parmesan oysters with my date getting the chicken piccata. Once the tapas came out we realized that we didn't have any silverware, so we tracked down an employee to get some. A short time later our dinners came out and we asked again for silverware. Once we got it we started enjoying our meal. Shortly after, my date realized that she thought the sauce on her dish should be cream based, but she had a tomato based one. Later on, we thought we overheard the waitress tell another table they used a different sauce than typical in their dish, something we were not aware of. It tasted fine, just was unexpected (can't remember if it is explicitly stated in the menu description). Once we finished our meal we asked for the gelato trio. It arrived fairly quickly, but was already pretty melted. I noticed that there were only 2 different colors amongst the 3 scoops and after we sampled them realized there was 2 vanilla. We flagged down the waitress and asked and she said she would go ask the kitchen. She was gone for a few minutes then came back and struck up a conversation with one of her other tables. After chatting with them for a bit she then turned to us to inform us they didn't have the hazelnut, so they just gave 2 vanilla and she wasn't informed that they were out and asked if we wanted a different dessert, of which we did not. (The waitress was never the person to bring out the food throughout the meal.) She then went back to the previous conversation. After finishing the gelato "trio", we flagged her down for the bill.

The food was good though I personally wasn't a fan of the parmesan oysters. I do like oysters and hadn't had them that way before, but didn't care for the style. The blue fin tuna tartare was very good. There mostly just seemed to be a disconnect around the wait staff, between not seeming to be familiar with the menu and the disconnect with the kitchen. The staff was very pleasant though. Of note, there were also 3 tables that remained uncleared for upwards of 45 mins despite us only seeing maybe 4 other tables come into the...

Nice view over the harbor. So much for the positive aspects. A lot has to happen before I would recommend this place to anyone. To be fair, most of the dinner places we visited in Avalon are mediocre, none really stand out. But this one is writing a check it cannot cash. The location is outstanding, and it's an absolute pity that they don't make more out of it. The silverware didn't match, water was served in Coca-Cola plastic cups instead of decent glassware (which you would expect from a place that tries to show off like this), and the ledge of the balcony looked like it hadn't been cleaned for a long time - unsavory when you're supposed to eat right next to it. There was some kind of event going on at the place, which clearly knocked out and near paralyzed the rest of the business. If you cannot support such a large group and also run your normal business, you'll have to sacrifice one of them. It took 45 minutes before we even had our beverages in hand, all beer on tap was out. We saw a few people come, sit down and leave shortly after, and I wish we had done the same! We had broiled scallops and the tuna tartare as starters. The scallops were lukewarm at best, all in all rather boring. The tartare was ok, nothing special, pretty bland. Not a micron beyond chopped up tuna with avocado and onion. We ordered the catch of the day (mahi mahi) with a risotto and bok choi, and the seafood risotto as main dish, hoping that the other negative reviews were wildly exaggerated. They were not. The mahi mahi was overcooked and dry, while the risotto was undercooked, the bok choi didn't deserve its fate at all, looking like a traffic accident on that plate. The seafood risotto was incredibly unimaginative, in a way just rice in a sauce with a few random chunks of seafood. This was a dinner of approx 150$ and an absolute disappointment, a waste of money, and frankly a waste of resources. Spend your money elsewhere, you will probably do a lot better. I honestly do not understand how these positive...

I think this is a place to come during the day when it’s light out…it seems like you’re paying for the view. Unfortunately we came at night, so we missed that. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a meal this disappointing, and I was surprised because I’d looked this place up ahead of time.

Note that the menu on the website at the time of this review does not reflect the actual menu. There have been quite a few items removed. We got the shrimp empanadas, lobster ravioli, and dark seas pasta. The empanadas were okay, but nothing to write home about. You get two small empanadas for $14.

The cream sauce in the ravioli and dark seas pasta is the same — pretty thick and cheesy, but one dimensional. Salty. It congeals like there’s too much flour in it. The ravioli comes with some cut up pita bread in it. I couldn’t believe the pasta was $36 for such a small portion — or rather, it should be plated in a larger shallow bowl to at least give the illusion of a larger serving. That said, you do get a good amount of seafood in it, but sadly I was sitting there wondering how rude it would be to ask to just rinse the sauce off my lobster, shrimp, and scallops and just have it with some lemon (!). I didn’t do it. I never waste food but I just couldn’t eat it.

I’m surprised there are good reviews about these dishes. Maybe this was an off day…but I don’t think so. This is my first time to Catalina so I don’t have many points of comparison, but at this price point, I expect better. For reference, I had an excellent $16 ceviche that was 4x the size of the ravioli dish at another restaurant for lunch.

I can say that my espresso martini was great. I think this is a day time drinks place. If you’re dropping close to $100 on a seafood meal,...