If you’re taking a vacation in Catalina, you are most likely going to need to eat. And unless you decide to pack your own food, you are likely in the need of a decent albeit expensive meal in this small island paradise.
So to satisfy our Mexican and seafood cravings, we decided to do some take out at the Mexican place, Maggie’s Blue Rose, and take it to the pier where we added some seafood dishes from Avalon Seafood.
Let’s start with Maggie’s Blue Rose. The lobster tacos from there were quite the flavor bonanza. The lobster itself wasn’t prevalent, but the pickled vegetables added a nice crunch and a flavorful tang that brought the tacos to life. I wasn’t impressed with the tortilla which was crunchy in some parts and soft in others. But otherwise, this was definitely a dish for me to try again.
Nothing much to say about the burrito, it was a standard burrito that you could get at any restaurant. The rice, beans, guacamole, salsa, red sauce and creme were all quite forgettable.
On the other hand if you are a fan of seafood and love to eat at any restaurant at the pier, then you would do well to carefully pick your dishes at the Avalon Seafood restaurant. The clam chowder was quite unique. We went for the bread bowl option which actually didn’t add anything useful to the buttery flavored clam chowder. I’m not planning on ordering that dish again as well as the fries from their place as well. You could make better fries using a bag of frozen fries and an air fryer at home.
We chose the seafood combination platter as we wanted to try a little of everything – fried fish, fried scallops, fried calamari and fried shrimp. The platter also came with coleslaw, tartar sauce and cocktail sauce. The coleslaw was a vast improvement over the fries and the fried scallops and fried calamari were definitely the fried seafood of choice from this place. The fried fish wasn’t crispy as it seemed like you could do better by buying frozen fish sticks and warming them up in the oven. The tartar sauce was quite dill forward which gave a nice refreshing tang to the otherwise crispy, greasy fried fish. We liked that version of tartar sauce so much that we even bought some dill to add to our own tartar sauce at home.
Lastly we had to order the fried clams as I used to go to a restaurant called the Hungry Bear (closed since COVID) and could never get enough of them. Avalon Seafood did not disappoint. The fried clams were crispy and flavorful and the cocktail sauce added the tang that I wanted. The French fries, unfortunately, were not worthy of sharing space with the fried clams though, we would have been better off sticking with the coleslaw..
