Over 30 years in business bringing fresh seafood to your table and home
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1020
Reviewed: 7/25/2006
Rating: 7.5
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It happens often that we'll leave work without knowing where to eat. We had just finished a nerd run over at Best Buy for movies. We made a right turn out of the driveway and slowly crawled down El Camino Real. To make matters worse, we had Eddie in the car which by the way is partly responsible for the creation of jatbar. He is the pickiest eater known to man and anything we suggested normally gets shut down. I made the decision to select Fish Market in Santa Clara. I've been a couple of times and don't remember why I never reviewed it.
Fish Market is known for their fresh seafood. You can even buy fresh fish inside to take home and cook. The restaurant is rather large but well maintained and clean. On the walls are old fisherman photos posing next to their trophies. Check out picture #6, the marlin son the right weighed almost 1000 lbs!!
For lunch I went with the Mahi Mahi pictured in #10 and #11. My side dishes were fishwife rice and steamed vegetables.
fishwife rice - a fancy name for rice pilaf. I don't even think it was an entire scoop of rice. It was dry as a desert and bland. kinda sucked.
vegetables - steamed vegetables, good for the heart, good for the soul. No complaints here, just your average run of the mill veggies.
fish - Mahi Mahi grilled over mesquite, cooked just right, lightly seasoned, nice charring flavor. Fish tasted excellent. Portion size a little small.
My score would have been higher if it wasn't for the weak side items and small portion size. I understand fresh fish cost money but $15 is a tad high for the quantity of food I received. If anything, serve the food on a smaller plate, it will at least look like you loaded up the plate. Service finished off slow with empty glasses of water sitting around for eternity.
The Fish Market is good but it's going to cost you. If you order a drink and appetizer, you'll spend $20. Sticking to the grilled fish and chowder are safe bets.
Reviewer: ne00
Total Reviews: 176
Reviewed: 6/19/2008
Rating: 7
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I went for dinner to the Fish Market near Blossom Hill Rd for my nieces HS graduation. Our reservation of 15 was suppose to be at 8pm but it took forever to get out of the parking lot after graduation and we didn’t arrive till 9pm. Given we were an hour late it still took them 30 min to setup our table for us.
Service was kind of slow even though the place wasn’t crowded but I give the waiter credit for being able to manage the floor along with our table. The drink refills took a bit longer than usual but eventually he remembered our table and out our drinks to us.
The bread brought to the table was average but it kept us over till our appetizers arrived. The crust is a bit hard to bite into. Clam chowder was excellent as well as the calamari. Our group also ordered the smoke salmon plate and everyone at the table seemed to have devoured that. I can’t really comment as I didn’t feel like salmon that particular night.
Anyways, basically everyone at the table ordered fish except for two people. One person ordered steak and another ordered clam linguini. Once we received our main entrees, the joke at the table was if everyone got the same order of fish since every order of fish basically looked the same. It was a piece of fillet that’s grilled and seasoned. I had some concerns in that department and had to try my niece’s tilapia to make sure it didn’t taste the same as my sea bass. The consistency was definitely different. My side items included fries and potato gratine. I managed to polish off the plate. The steak looked really good, thick and juicy, cooked to perfection. Typically I wouldn’t even considering ordering steak at a place that serves up fish but I may just order that next time I come here. Probably a good idea to avoid the clams linguini.
I can only imagine the final bill. I would only return if someone else was paying. Out of everything the clam chowder was the best and the calamari coming in at a close second.
Reviewer: Lainie
Total Reviews: 41
Reviewed: 8/9/2006
Rating: 7
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The Fish Market (and there are a few branches of this restaurant chain around the Bay Area) is a place where you can expect fresh seafood prepared in classic ways. What they do they do well. But I've always thought this place was a bit overpriced for the amount of food you get. But if classically prepared seafood dishes is what you want, you can definitely do worse. I like the 'Duckets Bucket' and the Caesar Salad with Shrimp. And the typical Fish and Chips is make with a large white fish fillet and is great.
The fish market is a place where you get friendly service and food that costs a little bit more than you're used to paying. Is this bad? It depends on whether you're willing to pay ~ $12 - 18 for a filet of fish. The meal begins with some sourdough bread and cold butter. Not the best bread, but it is not the worst either. You get free bread re-fills anyway so that's always a plus.
There are lots of different kinds of fish here, and I still have yet to find the fish I ordered this one time...it was REALLY good, but I can't find it anymore. When you order one of their fish dinners you get a choice of two sides. The fries are always a good choice as well as the veggies. The potatoes au gratin are a toss-up however, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. The price of the appetizers and the portion you get is questionable as well. For the price you pay for fried calamari here you can get a whole lot more at Sonoma Chicken Coop. The cheesy bread here is horrible in a good way I guess. It's so heart stopping that you won't want to stop eating it. Another good appetizer are the oysters Rockafeller. These are oysters covered in cheese and spinach and baked until the cheese forms a kind of crust it's really good. A dish that used to be REALLY good here is the cioppino, but now the size it used to be has shrunk. For around ~ $20 you would get a boiling pot of a great seafood stew that really filled you up, but now it's more a of a shallow pot. The desserts here are average, but for 25 cents you can get chocolates in the shape of tiny fish.
Reviewer: Grace
Total Reviews: 42
Reviewed: 9/22/2006
Rating: 8
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I'm debating between a 7.5 and an 8 as my last dining experience at the Fish Market was dissapointing, but overall it's a pretty good resturant. My favorite there is their sesame crusted ahi tuna with cilantro wasabi sauce. It's one of their specials so it's not always on their menu. My most recent trip last week consisted of getting ahi tuna seared rare. I ordered up an appetizer of oysters and clam chowder. Their oysters were super small, not worth the $12.50 for 6 imo, also their clam chowder was pretty bad that day, usually it's very fresh but this trip it had no flavor.
When I got my tuna, the server told me they were out of vegetables so I had to substitute something else for my side dishes (I ordered steamed veggies and basil tomatoes) and I asked for green beans which they had, but they were going to charge me extra for the side. So I guess I SOL on my side dishes.
Some of their more expensive entrees are very good, their king crab legs, surf and turf, rock lobster are cooked nicely. I also like the different skewers that they offer, which varies according to season. Also their scalloped potatoes are nice and cheesy, my bf always orders up two sides of those.
Even though my last experience sucked, they are normally very consistent with good service, so I'd definately go back again.
“Fish is usually good. Once in a while a little over cooked. Great clam chowder and sourdough bread. I had horrible service the last time I was at the Santa Clara location and I will think twice before revisiting. Palo Alto location has better service”
12/28/2007 2:34:23 PM
aquagrl800 ate...
linguine w/ clams + marinara
“Bland Bland Bland. Needed a liberal dash of salt and pepper and even then, didn't taste like much. Maybe I didn't order the right stuff. Seems very expensive for the amount of food. Clams were pretty fresh though. ”
7/25/2007 11:01:09 PM
Forcella ate...
Calamari Steak
“I've eaten at this restaurant twice, and I've gotten sick twice. Not full-blown bed-ridden food poisoning, just two or three days in which I knew I'd eaten something I shouldn't have. Chances are next to zero that I will attempt a third strike.”
