RESTAURANT REVIEW:

One or two faults I can look past, but it is tougher to excuse more than that.

Catalina Fish Kitchen unfortunately had many deficiencies, and though I tried to look past them, it proved to be too difficult a task.

The restaurant is set up like a little Mexican cantina and I liked the décor.

Television sets on the wall, one with a surfing movie on, added to the ambience and actually got me into the surfer lifestyle, if only from a distance.

A big pet peeve of mine, though, is wobbly tables, and it took me three times to find one that didn’t lurch forward when I put any pressure on it.

It seems like such a trivial complaint, but it just seems to me it is easily remedied.

It makes me wonder that if the tables are neglected, what else is overlooked in the restaurant?

Ordering is done at the counter and then someone calls your name and brings your food to the table.

The wait for my food was a bit long, but nothing terrible. I was hoping I could get my gumbo before my meal, but no luck — they arrived together.

The gumbo was interesting to me. The pint-size container it comes in is awkward.

If it were in a bowl I would have been able to mix the rice with the chicken or ono and vegetables.

In the pint, however, the rice is on the bottom.

I ordered the ono, and it was near the top with most of the sauce, carrots and zucchini. Mixing it together was tough since there was no space at the top of the Styrofoam container.

The sauce seemed pasty to me. I am used to a New Orleans-style gumbo that is thick, but has some fluidity to it.

This did not and, even worse, it was bland. I had to put hot sauce in it to give it any flavor.

I ordered the mahi mahi, and it was equally disappointing. The dinner came blackened, but was overcooked and chewy.

What surprised me the most were the steamed vegetables. After what I had just tasted, I was dreading biting into them, assuming they would be either mushy or cold.

They were neither. They were steamed perfectly and it was a joy to eat the carrots and zucchini.

Not all the food is poorly prepared and I think if I had ordered a little safer, I would have had a better experience.

I should have skipped the grilled fish and gotten fish tacos or fajitas, something I believe would have been easier to prepare.

If you treat the restaurant like a cantina, which I believe is the point, bar-type food would be better suited to go along with your bottle of Modelo or Pacifico.

Though I am not a fan of fried fish, this would have been the call here. The Hawaiian ono is beer battered and rolled in panko bread crumbs and fried in soy oil.

It is always hard to destroy a piece of fish when you are essentially doing that already by dropping it in a fryer, but that is a taste some like.

The burritos intrigued me as well. They are large and filled with black beans, steamed rice and cheddar jack cheese. The meat and fish options included chicken, ono, steak, calamari, shrimp or lobster.

Giving this restaurant another try because I enjoyed the atmosphere so much is a possibility, but I would certainly be more careful about what I ordered.

CATALINA FISH KITCHEN

ADDRESS: 19171 Magnolia St., Huntington Beach

PHONE: (714) 963-9921

CUISINE: Seafood

ALCOHOL SERVED: beer and wine

ENTRÉE PRICE RANGE: $6.95 to $12.95

FAMILY FRIENDLY: seven-item children’s menu

CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED: Visa, MasterCard, American Express

RATING: ** out of 4

JOHN REGER reviews local restaurants for the Independent.