Looking for a good place or an anniversary dinner, so decided to come to Market Grille because my husband had never been. Made the reservation online, but I'm not sure if there was any benefit to it. I wanted outdoor seating, but there is not a way to request that online. When we arrived, there was a group of 6 who were irate and asked to speak with the manager as they apparently made a reservation for an outdoor table, but on arrival were told that there were no outdoor tables and they would have to wait for a table to free up. While this drama was taking place, the 2 hostesses were engrossed in the discussion the group was having with the manager and not paying attention to me or the other customers waiting to check in. It took several minutes and some effort by me to catch someone's attention before they woke up and asked if they could help me. I also asked for outdoor seating, but was unsurprised to be told there were no tables available. To their credit, the hostess staff went outside to check if there were seats at the bar for us, but there were none. We agreed to eat indoors, and the hostess strangely offered us seats at the indoor bar. We asked for a table, and they readily accommodated us.
Our server was really friendly, appropriately attentive and the rest of the staff worked well together. Ordered the deconstructed tuna sushi and my husband ordered the crabcakes. The sushi came with fried wonton chips and was overall tasty, once I got past the somewhat pale color of the tuna, I broke into the tuna tower which was made up of sushi rice, mango, avocado, cucumber and tuna with a ponzu sauce. It was delicious but very filling to eat by myself. It is definitely good for sharing! I recommend breaking off pieces of the wonton chips and scooping the filling onto the piece. This allows you to have enough chips to eat most of the tuna tower. My husband also enjoyed his crabcakes.
I ordered the strawberry cucumber margarita off their new Summer Drink Menu, asking that they make it spicy, which means that they muddle jalepenos into the drink. It was delicious with a salt rim. For dinner, I ordered the Lobster and Shrimp Scampi special, which came with a lobster tail in the shell, tender shrimp, linguine and a somewhat creamy scampi sauce and grape tomatoes. The tomatoes gave a sweet flavor to balance the garlicky scampi sauce. The dish came with a lobster cracker, lobster fork and towelette, but there was no need for the lobster cracker since the tail was split in the middle to make it easier to remove the meat. The tail must have been grilled, not steamed or boiled, however, because it was stuck to the shell and I had some trouble separating the meat from the shell. The lobster fork and towelette came in handy! The dish was well balanced and had lots of shrimp and lobster. My husband ordered the blackened mahi mahi and said it was excellent.
For dessert, I ordered the carrot cake, which our server said was a great choice. He was not wrong! It was the moistest carrot cake that I've ever had. It was delicious, with just the right amount of cream cheese frosting and not overly sweet. Portions were appropriate, but after eating the entire tuna tower, I was stuffed and had plenty to take home for another meal. read more