By BlueZero
12 Feb 2012 07:11
Does seafood make for an exciting birthday celebration? I ended up joining a family member to celebrate his birthday in Orange County. He had a hard time choosing the birthday restaurant and had originally chosen an upscale steak restaurant. After walking inside and talking with the hostess, we were told it would be more than an hour four our party of 7. So he turned to his super-awesome backup plan which ended up being Clemente Seafood in Santa Ana. Here is our seafood adventure:
Ambiance:
The first thing I noticed as we parked our car was the restaurant was a little smaller than I expected. Clemente Seafood has seven tables around the perimeter which can seat four and had tables pushed together in the center to seat about 6 to 8.
As you can see from the picture, the interior was decorated with a giant swordfish on one side of the wall. On the other wall was a drawn outdoor paradise, the same one as pictured on the menu.
Drink: Horchata
I ordered horchata, my drink of choice in Mexican restaurants to set a baseline. For people who haven't tasted horchata, it is a sweet, milk-cinnamon flavored beverage with a tan-ish color. I usually prefer my horchata to be more milky and sweet than having the cinnamon too strong. The horchata at Clemente Seafood was good, maybe slightly too sweet. I could not detect any cinnamon flavor so either they put in a tiny amount or chose not to add it.
Main Course: Swordfish
I ordered the 10 oz. buttered swordfish with capers off the daily specials menu located at the front of the restaurant. It came with rice and a choice between beans or salad; I chose salad. I also chose corn tortillas.
For $10.99, this is a real bargain compared with other seafood restaurants I've seen. Most charge a minimum of $17 or $18 dollars for just the swordfish with most high-end restaurants charging at least ~$25, ~$30 in California.
Since I have never had swordfish before partly because I hear it contains a lot of mercury, I don't have anything to compare it with except other fish I've had in the past. I will say the filet portions were excellent, 10 oz was more than enough to fill me up after chips and salsa. The fish was moist, flavorful even when removed from the butter sauce and was not too flakey. Of course I ended up making some swordfish tacos with some lettuce, salsa, fish and butter sauce.
The side salad was decent, the salad dressing was really tasty. The lettuce was average. The rice unexpectedly looked like and tasted almost like rice pilaff. Very strange! I would have preferred Spanish rice and it would have complemented the fish much better.
I sampled my friend's whole fried bass with garlic-butter. I will probably get that the next time I return since it was good without tasting like it was drenched in garlic and butter. The presentation on the fried fish was excellent. I didn't ask to sample the same fish without the garlic-butter sauce, though I did snap a picture of it since it has better presentation.
Service: Good to Excellent
The food took a little too long to be served with my swordfish being the second last dish and we ended up waiting an extra 10 minutes for the last fish tacos to arrive. Perhaps the restaurant wasn't expecting a party of 7 to sit-down for dinner.
At least the chips and salsa kept coming as the kitchen worked away to complete our orders so this mitigates this complaint. The chips and salsa were outstanding and they kept refilling them and our water at frequent intervals. I was content socializing and watching a basketball game on their TV.
Conclusion
I enjoyed the swordfish and the horchata immensely. The value at Clemente Seafood is exceptional; I've never seen this kind of quality seafood so reasonably priced in a restaurant, Mexican or otherwise. The service was excellent, with our orders taking a while to be completed the only downside. I'm going to try and return in the future for a lunch break as their lunch specials are only around ~$7.50 and go beyond the generic tacos, enchiladas, burritos most places have. Overall Clemente Seafood is an excellent value with some superb seafood plates.