Dining Out | Culinary Culture | Local Gems | April 10, 2026
Introduction
There’s a quiet rebellion happening in dining rooms across America. It’s not loud, it doesn’t carry a placard — it simply sits at the corner of a steakhouse menu, fins-out and unbothered, daring you to order it. Steakhouses are temples of land-based pleasure. The air is thick with the scent of rendered fat, hardwood char, and that certain kind of hush that only exists when people are about to spend real money on dinner. Marble tables. Dim lighting. A sommelier who looks like he’s seen things. Everything points in one direction: beef. And yet, in the middle of all that bovine pageantry, the seafood section holds its ground with quiet confidence. Salmon. Coconut shrimp. Fish and chips. Three ocean-born dishes with entirely different personalities, each navigating steakhouse life in its own distinct way. Let’s examine them — honestly and hungrily.
1. Atlantic Salmon — The Diplomat of the Seafood World
Flavor Profile: Omega-rich | Smoky char | Buttery texture | Lemon-herb finish
If any seafood was born to thrive inside a steakhouse, it’s salmon. Not because it mimics beef — it doesn’t. But because salmon carries itself with the same unapologetic richness, the same willingness to withstand intense, direct heat and emerge from it transformed rather than destroyed.
A properly grilled steakhouse salmon fillet tells a story in three acts:
- The Crust: Those crosshatch grill marks aren’t vanity — they represent the Maillard reaction doing its best work, coaxing deep, toasty flavor from the protein and natural sugars on the surface.
- The Interior: When it’s done right, the flesh flakes in long, satiny ribbons with a barely-there translucent center.
- The Finish: A knob of compound butter melting slowly over the top, pooling into the grill marks, carrying herbs and citrus zest into every corner of the plate.
Order Smart:
Ask for your salmon medium — not well-done. Steakhouse kitchens are calibrated for high heat, and salmon benefits from the same thinking you’d apply to a strip steak: pull it before you think it’s ready.
The steakhouse pairing possibilities for salmon are genuinely spectacular. An oak-aged Chardonnay with enough body to stand up to the richness. Creamed spinach alongside, which sounds counterintuitive until you taste how the tang of the cream cuts through the fat. A wedge salad to open — the coldness and crunch a perfect prelude to something warm and yielding.
2. Coconut Shrimp — The Crowd-Pleaser That Refuses to Be Embarrassed About It
Flavor Profile: Tropical sweetness | Golden crust | Snap & crunch | Dipping sauce drama
Here is where opinions tend to divide. There exists a certain kind of diner — you’ve met them — who regards coconut shrimp at a steakhouse with the suspicion of someone finding a comedian at a funeral. “This is not the place,” they seem to say, with their eyes. They are wrong.
Coconut shrimp, executed with any degree of care, is a genuinely wonderful appetizer in any setting — and the steakhouse environment actually elevates it in ways that go underappreciated.
Steakhouses tend to source larger specimens — the kind referred to on menus with confident numerics like “U-10” or “jumbo.” The size differential changes the entire eating experience. You get a real snap of cold interior against the hot, crackling exterior.
Order Smart:
Order these early, share them freely, and allow yourself to enjoy something that asks nothing serious of you before the serious things arrive. Coconut shrimp understands its role perfectly. In a genre built on seriousness, there is real value in something that simply makes people happy.
3. Fish & Chips — A British Working-Class Legend, Wearing Its Finest
Flavor Profile: Beer batter | Flaky cod | Hand-cut fries | Malt vinegar | Tartar sauce
Fish and chips at a steakhouse is the most culturally interesting item on this list — because it arrives carrying centuries of context. This is a dish born in Victorian working-class Britain, evolved in coastal chip shops, perfected in newspaper wrapping. It is a profoundly democratic food. And here it sits, somehow, under a crystal chandelier.
The Batter Matters Most:
A true beer batter — made with actual ale, cold, whisked to order — produces a crust with micro-bubbles that expand in the fryer, creating that blistered, deeply crunchy exterior that shatters on first bite. If you tap it and it doesn’t sound hollow, something went wrong upstream.
The fish inside should be cod, or occasionally haddock — white-fleshed, gently flaky, clean on the palate.
Order Smart:
The chips — real ones, hand-cut from actual potatoes — come thick and pillowy inside, crackling outside, with a few irregular edges that got extra-crispy in the fryer. And then the accompaniments, which are not optional: malt vinegar, that sharp brown liquid that cuts through fat like a knife. Tartar sauce, ideally housemade, chunky with capers and cornichons, cooler and tangier than anything from a jar. A wedge of lemon. Perhaps a small ramekin of mushy peas if the kitchen leans into the British authenticity.
Why Steakhouse Seafood Earns Its Spot
There’s a lazy critique of steakhouse seafood that goes something like: “Why would you order fish when you’re surrounded by beef?” The answer is the same reason you’d order anything from any menu — because it looked good, because you wanted it, because the best version of that dish happens to be served right here.
Steakhouses invest in sourcing, preparation, and execution across their entire menu. Their kitchens are built for high heat, big flavors, and precise timing — exactly the conditions under which salmon sings, under which shrimp crunch magnificently, and under which batter achieves something close to perfection.
Whether you’re a devoted carnivore taking a one-night detour, a pescatarian navigating a celebration dinner, or simply someone drawn toward the sea on tonight’s menu — trust the seafood section. It’s there for a reason. It has stayed there for a reason.
The Final Word
Great seafood at a steakhouse shares one quality with great steak — it’s only as good as the hands that prepared it. When in doubt, ask your server which fish dish the kitchen is proudest of that evening. The answer will tell you everything.
About Tartan of Redlands
Featured Restaurant | Redlands, California | Est. April 15, 1964
Some restaurants exist simply to feed you. Others exist to make you feel like you belong somewhere. Tartan of Redlands has spent more than six decades doing the latter — and doing it exceptionally well.
The story begins on April 15, 1964, when three brothers with a shared dream opened their doors to the Redlands community. Velmer, Al, and Art Ctoteau weren’t chasing culinary fame or industry accolades. Their vision was refreshingly straightforward: cook honest, flavorful food, treat every guest like a neighbor, and build something that lasts. Six decades on, that founding philosophy hasn’t aged a day.
