Normally I never give a five-star rating on first visit. The reasons for this rare exception are as follows. Very nice and knowledgeable staff. Also attentive. But never did they ask me. "How is my meal" multiple times which is one of the most annoying things I have to deal with when dining out. Thank you. I had a very long week 5 days of being on the road leafleting hundreds of places regarding my sister-in-law's disappearance. No more on that. This is about the restaurant but you could tell I was in a frame of mind.
So Monday night I felt like treating myself and because Blue Heron closes at 9pm, I thought I'd check the casino food.
I started off with a glass of Chardonnay and clam chowder. Now I am normally not blown away by clam chowder. Years ago Spenger's down in Berkeley made some of the best, a standard that no longer exists, There are a lot of places to get clam chowder. Two things stood out. Healthy amount of chunks of potato and substantial pieces of fresh clam.
The second was it wasn't salty like 99% of restaurant food. I asked my waiter If they made the chowder on site and the answer was a very strong yes. May they never ever change the recipe. Natural flavors always win.
Next came the onion rings and the salad.
As you can see by the picture below, that's a lot of onion rings for a single person and I actually managed to dive through about 2/3 of it. Ranch dressing and a sweet but not hot tomato based sauce, not ketchup. I went for the ranch dressing - it was good. Onion rings were not over battered, another common problem I have where you totally lose any taste of onion. Often one finds themselves looking to see if onion was even used. The onions were there, the rings were nice and crispy on the outside and flavorful on the inside.
Lastly, the Shrimp Louie salad.
I go to a lot of places to try their shrimp and quite often the shrimp has been around the block a couple of times to be charitable. Frozen and defrosted. Often it's got various preservatives that aren't fully rinsed out and for some reason I can really tell this more than some people. And this happens in all kinds of situations: a fish market in Charleston, restaurants, buffets, Etc. Almost would rather take my shrimp home, rinse the hell out of it before eating. So it was a very pleasant surprise to take my first bite of the shrimp and taste nothing but shrimp(!!!).
It was also very fresh. That was some of the best shrimp I've ever had in my life.. I had to call the waiter and say hey, this shrimp has not been monkeyed with and it tastes fresh. He indulged my observation with a smile
The avocado was flawless, not over ripe and I'm total California native avocado aficionado and have been for most of my 70 years. I know my avocados.
The hard-boiled eggs slices were perfectly done. Probably steamed. Salad was a mixture of iceberg lettuce, tomato, cucumber, shredded carrot etc. If I had a suggestion would be to add some julienned beets. Not a lot but just some.
Maybe a larger plate so I can toss things together better. Other than that it was absolutely perfect . I took my time to eat all my veggies like a good boy and of course with nobody around me there was no problem. Now maybe it's just a relief on my part because I had a very long 5 days, so do take that into mind when reading my review here. I can be pretty exacting about my choice of food and what makes for good food and food that's slightly off but not annoying enough to spit it out. Both the chowder and the Shrimp Louie Salad blew me away, and I am very thankful for the staff at Warehouse 101, especially folks in the kitchen and rhe very nice waiter who humored me. Total cost was a very reasonable $47 and I tipped 20 bucks and left a note on the receipt saying thanks to the kitchen staff.
Now that was definitely because it had been a long week, but also a very hearty thank you to people who made sure I had a good time.
Additional note, it was nice having all the TVs but there were no captions. There really...
Read more
Learn more insights from Wanderboat AI.
