East Coast Grill and Raw Bar

We had dinner at East Coast Grill and Raw Bar in Inman Square last night. We went primarily for the oysters; my husband and I have great memories of slurping down a dozen oysters artfully arranged on styrofoam plates by the oyster-mongers at the Washington DC fish market (we learned later that people had actually died of food poisoning from eating oysters there!) and barbecuing probably a hundred oysters (seriously- there were about seven of us, but still) at Tomales Bay in Northern California. My husband doesn't like seafood in general, but he loves him some oysters!

The oysters at East Coast Grill were okay. I am not sure what kind we got because the place was so loud we had a hard time hearing our server. We determined that there were 2 kinds of oysters, though, so we had half a dozen of each kind. One was "brinier" than the other, and we didn't care for that one- it had this metallic aftertaste that was not very pleasant.

Where the place really shines is the entrees. I had the bluefish and my husband had the... striped bass? Monkfish? I can't remember, but both were very good, and the sides were also very good. I got these huge fried sweet potato wedges and balsamic flavored greens that unfortunately were swimming in oil or butter, so I didn't want to eat too much of them. My husband's fish came with a really great side of heirloom tomato salad and really tasty fried artichoke hearts. The artichoke hearts appeared to come from a can because they didn't have much flavor, but the batter was really good, and they weren't greasy but tasty and crispy. I kept picking them off his plate!

We skipped dessert because if we wanted dessert, we would have just gone to Christina's, which is right next door. However, we were too full, so skipped the sweet stuff. Alas, because Christina's is really good!