I’ve blogged about Oceanaire many times on this blog. And while we no longer visit as much as we used to, we still like to check in every once in a while, especially during Restaurant Week. I think Oceanaire offers one of the best deals for Restaurant Week (which they will be extending an extra week for those interested in checking it out).

Not only are their famous crab cakes (normally $17.95 an order) on the Restaurant Week menu, but they also include a lot of their expensive entrees, whereas many other restaurants will offer cheaper entree choices.  The selection is also more than the standard 3 choices. For those unfamiliar, basically everything in bold is part of the RW menu.

While they offer some steaks, simple broiled or grilled fish and some classics, I would definitely recommend getting something off of their Fresh Fish Specialties menu. The offerings here are very fresh fish, which can be barely cooked a medium rare, and they offer some tasty preparations too.

Vegetable plate and Sourdough bread


The complimentary starter is always crisp vegetables and a chunk of warm sourdough bread. It makes me feel so healthy munching on celery, carrots, and radishes before my meal. The sourdough bread here is pretty good as well .

Jumbo Lump Crab Cake

They have quite a few selections of appetizers, including fresh oysters, but we can never give up the crab cake.  Imagine the best pieces of sweet crab meat held together by the barest amount of bread crumbs. It’s the best way to enjoy crab without all the work. The buttermilk sauce is a perfect accompaniment. I’ve had many good crab cake renditions over the years, but Oceanaire still remains my all-time favorite for the best crab cakes.

If you’ve never dined at Oceanaire before, some of their best and most popular fish preparations are the “drunken” and the “kid dynamite.” We love both preparations but since we’ve had them multiple times as well as some of the other preparations, we wanted to try something new.

Horseradish Crusted Steelhead with  saffron and baby summer vegetables

This was DH”s choice and it was perfect for him. He loves horseradish and there was a generous portion of horseradish sitting on top of the fish. The outside of the fish was nice and crispy, the inside very moist and tender. I don’t like horseradish so I only had a small taste.

Grilled Opah with brown figs, mascarpone cheese, and lobster risotto

I chose this one because of the figs and risotto. The brown figs were reduced to a sauce that sat on the top of the fish. Our waiter advised me to move it off to the side because it’s a very sweet. I’m glad I listened. It was intensely sweet, almost like a fig jam or compote. The fish was grilled to a medium rare.

I found the sauce too sweet, so I didn’t really use it. I also wasn’t much of a fan of the risotto. There was only two tiny chunks of lobster, taken from the tip of the claw meat. The risotto overall was too sweet and the texture was off.  This wasn’t one of my favorite dishes, though the fish was prepared well.

Mango Pineapple Crisp with Passionfruit Ice Cream

I really loved this dessert. The warm mango pineapple crisp tasted amazing with the cool ice cream. The tropical flavors reminded me of summer.

Key Lime Pie

I don’t particularly like key lime pie so I can’t really comment on this one. DH seemed to enjoy it though.

Even though there were some misses, we still had a good time. And I would still recommend this place for restaurant week. The entrees we had were almost $40, so we basically got the $17.95 crab cake and dessert for free, saving close to $30 on our meal. Previous Oceanaire posts can be found here, here, here, here, here and here. Here’s the restaurant week menu:

Oceanaire Seafood Room
400 J St
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 858-2277