Andy Tullis / The BulletinThe steak, king crab and prawns plate with the blue cheese wedge salad at McGraths Fish House in Bend

A list of Central Oregon restaurants that prepare seafood consistently well would be a very short one, indeed. McGrath’s Fish House would be near the head of the list.

A longtime fixture on Bend’s north side, beside U.S. Highway 97 at the Bend River Promenade, McGrath’s is an integral part of a Salem-based group of restaurants with 12 eateries in four Western states. John McGrath, who was raised in a family of fishermen, established the first restaurant in 1980, and his heritage is still reflected in the dozens of historical, black-and-white photographs of the Oregon coastal fishing industry that hang on the walls.

This is a large restaurant that seats more than 140 in its two dining rooms and at least 40 more in the adjacent lounge. A seafood market, which exhibits fresh fish and shellfish from coastal waters, greets new arrivals just past the hostess stand, where my companion and I were greeted and seated quickly on both of our recent visits. Light contemporary rock and blues tunes play in the background, setting a pleasant mood.

Overall, the mood is more casual than fine dining. On our recent dinner and lunch visits, service was friendly and very well intended, but a touch less than professional.

The young man who waited upon us at dinner, for instance, couldn’t answer a question about the difference in price between snow crab (from Alaska) and Dungeness crab (from Northwest waters), confusing the source of the latter with that of lobster (from Maine).

Dinner time

Our dinner began with the delivery of a half-loaf of warm, sliced sourdough bread with a small dish of whipped butter. It was the kind of bread that makes you want to eat more, even when you know there is a lot more food to come.

As a starter, I had a cup of peppery, tomato-based fishermen’s stew with clams and fish. The tiny clams were sadly rubbery, but the flavor was otherwise delicious, with a white fish (perhaps cod), red potatoes, onions and celery.

My companion enjoyed her salad, a “petite shrimp Louis” that featured a generous amount of bay shrimp on a bed of fresh iceberg and green leaf lettuces. The salad was blended with green pepper, black olives, tomato, cucumber and slices of hard-boiled egg, as well as a sprinkle of paprika. It was finished with Thousand Island dressing, served on the side.

The salad was merely a taste tempter before her main course, a steak and crab legs combo. The 7-ounce top sirloin may not have been prime beef, but it was cooked on the rare side of medium rare, as she likes it, and it was juicy and full of flavor. The accompanying Dungeness legs included a couple of good-sized claws with lots of sweet white meat. The meal included a baked potato (her choice of rice or potatoes) and a medley of vegetables.

I was drawn to a menu special, “apricot halibut.” Alaskan halibut was perfectly pan-fried to a golden brown, then bathed in a simmering cognac cream sauce with sun-dried apricots. This was a recipe I might try to re-create myself, it was so tasty.

But the sides weren’t quite as good. Rice pilaf, steamed in chicken broth, was too salty for my taste. And the veggies (zucchini, yellow squash, cauliflower and broccoli), while fresh, were so undercooked as to be almost raw. Some diners would love that; I prefer mine more al dente.

The kitchen and service staff didn’t time the meal well. We had barely begun our soup and salad, for instance, when the entrees were delivered. The server was a nice fellow, but he failed to check back during our meal to assure that we were pleased with the preparation. And he brought the bill — while my companion was still enjoying her entree — without suggesting dessert.

Lunch visit

When we stopped by again for lunch a few days later, our server was much more proficient. Granted, he also failed to offer dessert — and he didn’t do a good job of cleaning my companion’s glass of Jamaican punch (a smoothie with pineapple juice, strawberries, banana and coconut cream), which had sloshed over the rim — but that punch was as good as a dessert, anyway.

We began this meal with lettuce cups, featuring bay shrimp that were lightly floured and flash-fried in the same sweet-and-spicy sauce that McGrath’s uses on its calamari. Tasting like honey with a sesame sprinkle, they were served atop four crisp cups of iceberg lettuce that could then be rolled and dipped in a Thai-style lime sauce.

I ordered prawn scampi as my main course. Nine good-sized prawns were lightly sauteed with finely minced garlic, tomatoes and basil in a white-wine butter sauce, then tossed with linguine noodles. The dish was delicious. On the side I had a somewhat ordinary garden salad, mixed greens with red cabbage, carrots, house-made croutons and single wedges of tomato and cucumber.

My companion’s meal was a crab artichoke sandwich, which appeared much more like a dip — it was served open-faced on slices of buttered toast — than an actual sandwich. It had big chunks of crab, however, and whole artichoke hearts, so she thoroughly enjoyed it. French fries and house-made slaw, nicely balanced between sweet and tart, provided the finishing touches.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com