Maritime East - Berkeley, CA

So for a Lenten Friday four weeks ago I just really wanted to get some good seafood, so I thought to myself, where haven't I tried that supposedly does good seafood...

Maritime East! For those of you who don't know, it's a relatively new spot in Berkeley on Telegraph about a half mile south of campus. It took over the old Zax Tavern location, which I also used to like, but which was a bit expensive.

Maritime East apparently is an East Bay expansion of an SF restaurant called Cafe Maritime. While the focus is on seafood, there's definitely enough variety that Veggies and Carnivores could have their fill as well. Since it is Lent, I restricted myself to the Seafood, hoping to go back for a taste of the much touted Cheeseburger they serve (reported to be one of the best in the Bay Area).

After first checking out their menu to make sure it wouldn't break the bank (definitely not a cheap eats kinda place, but you can get away with a very full meal on less than $40-$50/pp even with a drink) we proceeded through the door. Doublewong was once again my foodie partner in crime.

After a somewhat hilarious and surprising pyro mishap we reviewed the menu and asked several questions about the food and restaurant. Even though the cocktails sounded great, we decided to go dry that night, since I was going to be driving down to SJ right after dinner. To start, they offered the complimentary plate of bread, artisan & baguette slices along with soft butter and sea salt. Great bread! and you don't usually see the sea salt accompany the butter in too many places since most butters already have salt in them, but I did like to sprinkle the salt on myself in this case since I believe the butter was unsalted.

We ordered a couple of starters to begin with. Seafood Chowder, Brussel and PeaSprout "Hash" and a pair of raw oysters (Marin Miyagis & Nootka Sound) each since doublewong has never had raw oysters before. The oysters went over well, though I could've gone for a couple more. But at $2.5-3 each, that could get out of hand. Better to go oyster crazy during happy hour. The Seafood Chowder included clams, mussels, fish, fingerlings, bacon, leek cream. It was a lighter cream base than what either of us were used to, but it still worked. I didn't realize that there was going to be bacon until after it was ordered, but I just avoided it in the few spoonfuls I had. Very tasty and chocked full of goodies, a definite recommend. The "Hash" didn't go over very well. It was ok, just sort of bland. Actually it reminded the both of us of garlic sauteed peasprouts that you can get at most good chinese places, except this was more bland.

For our mains, dw ordered the “Deviled” Dungeness Crab with meyer lemon linguini, poached farm egg ($22) and I got curious and ordered Arctic Char fennel, olives, chick peas, saffron nage ($23.5) cause I didn't know what Arctic Char was (turns out it's closely related to salmon & trout and has characteristics of both). My first taste of arctic char was good, seared and roasted with a bit of salt and pepper I believe. A very interesting fish, it has the bright deep pink color of salmon and a similar texture but it had the flavor of trout. Cooked perfectly, it was still tender and not dry. I don't think it will be one of my favorite fishes, but a good option should I see it on other menus.

The real gem of the night though was the crab linguini. Housemade fresh pasta in a light sauce with nice big chunks of dungeness crab and mix in the poached egg on top and you have a winner all-around. dw enjoyed it immensely from what she tells me and I'll have to order it on my own the next time I go. I think we both made good choices though.

A comment on the space. There were two rooms to the restaurant, the regular dining room and the room with the bar. If I remember correctly, it's not much changed from Zax, maybe a little cleaner and the lighting is better. You could probably have a very nice but casual dinner there if not totally romantic. It did seem to get a little loud when things filled up as the even went on but not too bad that you had to strain to hear the person across from you.

And except for the mini-inferno on our table, the service was very good. Everyone was nice, all of 0ur dishes/utensils/drinks were promptly cleared/replaced/refilled when done, and the server was well informed, except for the oysters which she found out about for us.