Sea Rocket Bistro

[original date of entry 7/10, but delayed due to enjoying vacation too much to post every day, so that's why I wait several weeks to a month to post four or five entries at a time!]

All right folks - Sea Rocket Bistro in North Park is another place we went to in which we utilized a COUPON, which was graciously provided by the ever so awesome Food Ho. Another reason to use the coupon was the fast approaching expiration date of July 17th. So yeah, we HAD to use it or lose it! This time, we brought TC - she's pretty adventurous for a kid. She eats what we eat. No fast food shit for her. She's willing to try almost anything. Sea Rocket is known for serving local and sustainable foods, if you're into that tree hugging stuff. See the Yelp reviews of Sea Rocket here.
Sea Rocket is at the location of the old Linkery on 30th Ave, which moved up the street. Since it was a Friday Night, parking was scarce. We parked a few blocks away. North Park on Fridays is pretty happening. It was quite a foreign scene to us non-urban hipsters. We felt like a fuddy duddy married couple (but I think we're hip to some degree, ha ha) going to a hip food joint with our kid. We have no nightlife to speak of, so this was kind of like a field trip for us.
They had a $2 tapas menu and some other reasonable starters.
I don't know if it's like this everyday, but the clientele didn't seem very "ethnically diverse" (at least for the night we were there). With the exception of a gay "White on Rice" couple, and one other dark haired and brown skinned person (seen below with the yellow shirt), we were the "diversity". In any case, people there were really chill and cool. I didn't feel like how I felt at The Lodge in Pebble Beach...There was no "Could you please pass me the Grey Poupon" feeling here. I didn't feel like Billy Ray Valentine not understanding the "S Car Go" joke in "Trading Places". TC was the only kid though! As always!
Bert's beer - the Ballast Point Yellowtail Pale Ale.
I'd read about and heard about Sea Rocket's sardines on a stick, so that's what we got. It was, ta da..$2 a skewer. We got one of those and another sardine appetizer. The sardine was grilled quite nicely and was impaled on a stick that seemed more substantial that your regular barbecue stick.. The sardine was also coated with olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt, which I really loved. The only thing I didn't really like were the bones, which are actually edible, but I don't like the feeling of the tiny thin bones traveling down my throat. Bert and I took a few experimental nibbles, but left the rest for TC because she loves almost anything on a stick. She enjoyed the sardine just as much as we did.
The other sardine appetizer was the poached sardine fillets on bread...I liked this better than the one on a stick since the bones were gone from this. We let TC polish these off as well. I felt like such a hillbilly since I'd never had fresh sardines before, only canned ones. If you are Filipino, you may have grown up eating canned sardines in tomato sauce with rice or miswa noodles. The brand my mom always got was "Ligo" which is the #1 brand in the Philippines.
This was my entree (description lifted straight from their menu) - the San Diego Fisherman's Stew - $16. "A hearty mixture of Carlsbad clams, mussels, squid and market fish chunks in a tomato-based broth, served with crisped ciabatta bread slices".

I really liked my entree. The portion was just right - it wasn't some bigass honkin' portion like they serve at Buca de Beppo or Claim Jumper. It was a normal non gluttonous sized plate. I liked the variety of seafood included in this dish. The broth was also pretty good, not too salty. It was pretty satisfying but not overly heavy. I didn't like the bread too much though and ended up giving it to my daughter so she could eat it with her clam chowder. This was Bert's plate - the Pan-Seared Market Fish - price varies ($16-$18 - I don't remember but we had a coupon so it was all good!)Pan-seared seasonal fish fillet (usually a choice of two different types of local fish as available) served with sauteed greens (Swiss Chard, Kale, Mustard Greens, etc.) and roasted butternut squash, garnished with our chimichurri sauce.

In this case, the fish was Chilean Seabass - that poor overfarmed fish. Bert cannot seem to pass up Seabass whenever it pops up on a menu. Instead of butternut squash, he had roasted carrots. He felt the fish was a bit overcooked and didn't flake as nicely as other seabass entrees he's had in the past. I had some of his greens - which turned out to be mustard greens, which I absolutely love. Nice and bitter! TC had the clam chowder, which she ate with some of my bread...She really liked the clam chowder, especially the clams which came with their shells. She enjoys taking out the meat. The soup was pretty filling, with lots of clams and diced potatoes in it.
After our dinner, we decided to pass on dessert since we were pretty full. While walking to our car, I snapped a photo of this totally wanna be Patrick Nagel looking ad for a North Park beauty salon. Remember the Duran Duran "Rio" album cover and the Charlotte Russe logo of a new-wavish type chick in the late 80's? That's the style of Patrick Nagel...Anyone that was around in the 80's has probably seen at least one graphic print of Nagel in any mall poster shop. Unless you lived under a rock or something...More on him here.
We'd go here again just to try a few of their other offerings. The food and service was pretty good here - we had a really nice waitress. Aaaand...because we're tight like that, we're going to wait until we get another coupon!