Sizing up Matro’s

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The motto at Mastro’s must be “bigger is better.” The restaurant is huge, the bar is towering, many portions are enormous and the bill can be staggering. This is a restaurant on steroids. The expense-account crowd is here during the week and the Maserati singles set is on the prowl during the weekends.

Despite the nightly throng of diners, everything runs smoothly and servers seem to prioritize your satisfaction.

Arriving at the Ocean Club, we were welcomed by four life-sized bronze dolphins and music blaring into the night. As the valet whisked our Volvo to the parking lot, we entered the stone foyer and were soothed by the sound of water cascading down one wall.

Elements of wood, stone and glass combine to create a very attractive, contemporary ambience with just a flourish of Las Vegas glitter. The bar area takes up about a quarter of the restaurant, featuring a very large eat-in bar as well as banquettes along the walls and many tall tables with stools for drinking and/or eating. The room is dominated by a dramatic multi-colored backlit two-story bottle display, flanked by glass-enclosed wine racks.

In the center of the building is an atrium with a towering tree festooned with twinkling lights. The surrounding dining rooms boast ocean views. This huge restaurant is anything but cozy, but the sub-divisions help by breaking up the space; although the rooms are still quite noisy and the bar is cacophonous.

The hostess seated us in one of the dining rooms and asked if the table was satisfactory (the first evidence of their notable desire to please). A large basket of assorted breads was presented with bland pretzel and French bread but very good garlic, Parmesan toasts.

Mastro’s bills itself as a fish house but actually they serve more steaks than fish. Essentially, everything is prepared or cooked simply and served with sauces on the side.

The fish is prepared with lemon butter sauce, breadcrumbs and oregano or blackened, then served with cocktail sauce, seafood remoulade and tapenade (better on bread than fish). The entrées come without accompaniment but there are 22 side dishes to choose from, nine of which are potatoes.

To begin your meal, you have a choice of fresh, cold seafood including, shrimp, crab, lobster and oysters. You also have the option of creating your own seafood tower (a tiered platter with crushed ice). Also available are fried calamari, sautéed or vanilla battered shrimp, seared ahi or steamed mussels.

Among the salads is something called a spicy mambo salad. This turns out to be their Caesar salad with the addition of wasabi and horseradish to the dressing. Yikes! This bizarre combination totally ruins a perfectly good salad by masking any other flavors.

Our excellent waiter Eric recommended the sautéed shrimp. Three large shrimp, wading in a pool of tomato beurre blanc, were surrounded by the wonderful Parmesan toasts, which we used to mop up every drop of the buttery, garlicky, slightly spicy sauce.

The bone-in rib eye is big enough to share but surprisingly, not very flavorful in spite of the rub on the outside. In fact, maybe that’s why they put the rub on the outside. You would expect more tasty meat from a restaurant chain that began with steakhouses.

Elle chose the Chilean sea bass because in her opinion, at it’s best, it is ambrosial and a good test of a fish house. Forewarned that they cook fish medium, which means an opaque, flaky center, she requested the fish to be on the rarer side.

In most restaurants “How’s everything?” is a rhetorical question. The server isn’t really expecting an honest answer.

Here, when Eric asked Elle, “How is your fish?” he really seemed to want to know. She replied that the texture was not velvety, which one expects in a $37 piece of fish.

He was concerned and offered to bring something else. She demurred but he really wanted her to make another choice and recommended the sturgeon, obviously understanding exactly what she was looking for.

He was absolutely right, and we were very pleased because the fish was cooked rare, the taste was exquisite and the snowy, satiny flesh was luscious.

Now about those sides: Most of them would feed four hungry truckers! The fried onions should be “served with a pamphlet on liposuction.” If only they weren’t so thin-crispy and irresistible.

The creamed spinach, luckily, was easily resistible, having a disproportionate amount of “cream” to spinach, negating any taste of the vegetable.

Among the more interesting potato selections are sweet potato fries and potatoes au gratin. There is also a very popular gorgonzola mac and cheese. Sautéed asparagus, currently out of season, was quite good but served in a portion of normal size.

As we were eating, the maitre d’ came over to be sure that the sturgeon was to our liking and insisted on giving us a free dessert. On the menu are baked Alaska, key lime pie and white chocolate mousse cake as well as standards like cheesecake, crème brulée and carrot cake. Portions again are bountiful. We were treated to their warm butter cake with raspberry glaze accompanied by vanilla ice cream. On the side was a mountain of whipped cream.

The cake itself was quite sweet and a bit on the dry side although the creams make it go down smoothly. Back again were the waiter and the maitre d’ to make sure we were happy.

Mastro’s is a prime example of an extremely well-run, high-end corporate chain restaurant as opposed to a single-unit restaurant run by a chef.

Prices are high but there is no split charge.