Once seated a couple of things become very clear, one is that the ceilings are very low, so low that you almost feel like you’re in someone’s basement, and second is that we were the youngest people in there by twenty to thirty years! Dim lights, low ceilings, and white hair is the atmosphere that surrounds you, but all that white hair shows a lot of loyal customers who just keep coming back year after year.
Our waiter arrives to get our drink order which includes a Diet Coke for me and a Blue Hawaiian (too strong) for my wife. Unfortunately our waiter seemed to be serving half the tables in the place, and took nearly ten minutes to return with our drinks and then take the rest of our order. We start of with the garlic shrimp appetizer and I add a strawberry and walnut salad. My wife orders the fish and chips while I decide on the grilled catfish.
The shrimp arrive and they are six grilled shrimp swimming in a butter and garlic sauce. While the sauce has a nice buttery flavor, the shrimp themselves were slightly over cooked. A slight char tastes good but grill it for just a bit too long and you get a slightly burnt flavor. My salad was next and consisted of, crisp lettuce, walnuts, strawberries, and mandarin oranges covered in a lemon poppy seed dressing. Problem was that the dressing was a bit too lemony. Not bad, but the lemon flavor could have been toned down a smidge.
Dinner arrives and my wife’s fish and chips consisted of breaded white fish and crisp French fries. The coating for the fish was slightly crisp and had a nice flavor, while the fish was very flaky and really required a fork to eat. My dinner was a grilled catfish with a lemon butter sauce, served over a bed of spinach. The catfish had a nice texture, firm but not rubbery. What it didn’t have was much flavor. The sauce was thin and very mild. Some use of salt or any other seasoning would have been appreciated.
After dinner our waiter recommends two desserts for us, one is the key lime pie, and the other is the Heath bar cake. The first was a moist Heath bar flavored cake topped with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and chopped Heath bar pieces on top. While my key lime pie had a nice balance of tart and sweet. Many times key lime pie is either too tart or too sweet, this one found a nice balance of both.
Final bill with tip was about $70 for the two of us, pretty reasonable for a seafood restaurant. Problem is that not one thing stood out. The food and service were both average, which in turn makes “Don’s” a less than stellar choice. Overall rating of * and ½ out of ****.
Location
9335 Skokie Blvd.
Skokie, IL
847-677-3424
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