McCormick & Schmick Seafood Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

My friend Justin gave me a gift certificate to McCormick & Schmick Seafood Restaurants, so I used it the other day at the D.C. location near Farragut Square. McCormick & Schmick is a national chain of high-end, white tablecloth restaurants with menus that change daily according to what is fresh from the water and in season. I heard a waiter talking to a nearby table, and she said that this is halibut season. By that time, though, I had already ordered, and decided to stick to my original plan.

I started with a cup of the seafood and corn chowder, a cream-based soup with crab, shrimp, and who knows what else in the mix. It came with a cellophane packet of oyster crackers. They also brought me a quarter-loaf of a very good sourdough bread, which I used instead of the crackers.

For my main course, I had the seafood Cobb salad. Greens dressed in what tasted like a crab Louis sauce were topped with stripes of various ingredients common to Cobb salads, plus stripes of popcorn shrimp, crab meat, and tiny bay scallops. A sliced avocado quarter garnished the salad. I thought it was a good and substantial salad. My only complaint was that the bacon tasted a bit old to me and some of the crunchy bits were too crunchy.