Restaurants

Seablue

City:

Atlantic City

County:

Atlantic County

Phone:

866.692.6742

Price:

$$$$

Cuisine:

Seafood

Key:

Full Review

Seablue

***1/2
Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa
Borgata Way
Atlantic City
866.692.6742
Michaelmina.net

Seablue marks the East Coast debut of San Francisco–based chef Michael Mina. It is one of three new restaurants at the Borgata featuring celebrity chefs with Vegas outlets. Bobby Flay and Wolfgang Puck run the others.

Mina chose Adam Tihany to design the attractive lounge (where blue predominates) and the dining room (a dramatic, modern space done up in orange and burnt sienna). The only design nod to the life aquatic is a series of wall-mounted screens that display funky looped videos of animated sea creatures.

The seafood-centric menu offers excitement. The Egyptian-born chef pays homage to his Middle Eastern roots with a selection of tagines, cooked in Moroccan clay pots. Seafood appetizers are grouped by preparation method—fried, steamed, marinated, raw—and within each category diners can opt for a small tasting of three.

Our party made good use of that option. Among the raw offerings, minced ahi tuna with ancho chile and sesame oil is my favorite, but king salmon with salty, tart pickled plum holds its own, and yellowtail with spicy shiitakes and ponzu is creamy and lush. A companion swooned over the fried assortment, whose three components were accompanied by their own dipping sauce: whole-grain mustard for a whimsical lobster corn dog, Tunisian hot sauce for one perfect soft-shell crab, and a refreshing avocado lime purée for Gulf prawns.

We passed up one lavish Mina signature entree (lobster potpie with truffle cream) but opted for another (ahi sandwiched between foie gras and a potato-shallot cake, finished with a pinot noir sauce). Seared day-boat scallops get a lighter treatment that includes (in season) spring onion, asparagus, and salsify. Meat lovers can choose among steak, lamb, pork, and chicken dishes. I suggest the Kobe short rib tagine, not just for the aromas that waft up when the server lifts the lid, but also for the tender threads of beef in a rich, satiny, smoky sauce on a bed of couscous.
I have a couple of quibbles: The rib tagine was too salty, and the so-called chips on fish, for which delicate Florida pompano is crusted with paper-thin potato scales, lacks oomph.

The impressive wine list is long on seafood-friendly varietals such as Riesling, chardonnay, and pinot noir. Oversize wine glasses are de rigueur here, as is unobtrusive service that combines European attentiveness with American warmth.

As for desserts, all but one hit a home run. The strawberry shortcake brûlée paled next to, for example, the apricot upside-down cake with apricot crème brûlée and an inspired liquid component of Darjeeling apricot sweet tea. The blueberry renversée turned out to be an inside-out tart with mascarpone filling, accompanied by a raspberry float. A disc of pistachio-saffron kulfi (Indian ice cream) provided just the right boost to a crunchy-tuile napoleon.