Taste Bytes Weekly Pinterest Recipe: Pesto Shrimp from Megan Hilliard on Vimeo.

Here's my weekly Pinterest recipe, grilled pesto shrimp skewers. Enjoy!

Restaurant Review: Sea Harvest Fish Market

For this week’s review, I decided to visit the Sea Harvest Fish Market at Monterey Bay. Just looking at the place from the outside, I could tell it was a small restaurant. My instincts did not fail me when I went inside. My family arrived at the peak of the lunch rush, and the packed room saw every seat filled with customers. My mom gave a waitress our name and we were told it would be about a 20 minute wait. 

Overall, the wait wasn’t that bad, as I could preoccupy myself by looking at the front counter. As its name implies, this restaurant also doubles as a fish market, proudly displaying its fresh catches on ice. In fact, the first thing that caught my eye was the vast array of seafood selections on sale. They had everything from thick maroon tuna steaks, to whole, local wild salmon, to huge jumbo prawns. Even in between the front counter and the dining area was a tank of live lobsters. 

After our wait, we were seated. Glazing over the menu, I chose my dish: seafood pasta with salmon, prawns and bay scallops. I have to tell you I was not disappointed. I really enjoyed the taste of the alfredo sauce with the fish, and was glad to see that there was plenty of that seafood. Although the “prawns” were not what I expected (I expected a few jumbo prawns, instead these were more like shrimp), they were still delicious. I think my favorite part of the dish was that there was a good proportion of fish to pasta. After I eaten all the prawns and the salmon, there was still plenty of scallops hidden in my bowl and I’d suddenly discover more when I thought they were all gone.

There are some downsides to this restaurant though. Although I very much enjoyed my dish, everything else that my family ordered was not of note. The restaurant’s menu seemed to have all the typical “seafood restaurant” dishes like clam chowder and fish and chips, which weren’t anything special. Not bad, in a sense, but not great, like my pasta. My younger brother even told me he’d wished he would have shared food with me, instead of getting his fried fish combo meal. That would have been great for the both of us, too. My pasta was the size of two good servings, so it would have been nice to share instead of leaving stuffed.

Another thing I have to criticize about this restaurant are its prices. All of the menu items that seemed appealing to me, for example, the grilled jumbo prawns, were $16 or more. My pasta alone was $12. My other family members ordered less expensive, hence less quality, items. I do wish I would have tried something from the expensive, appealing side of the menu, but I can’t ignore the prices. Nonetheless, my pasta really was delicious, and I don’t regret getting it. My only wish is that I could come again and be able to try other things. 

Overall, I was satisfied with this restaurant’s food. The only advice I’d give before going to this restaurant is if you plan on getting something great, prepare to pay a lot of money for it.