Chow Down With John Batchelor at Blue Water Grille

Blue Water Grille is the flagship of the Blue Restaurant Group, owned by Paul Riggan, who trained at Johnson and Wales.

From the entryway, the bar flanks to the right. High-top seating with food service is available. The main dining room is separated into multiple seating areas, which creates a cozier feel, but when full — and this restaurant fills up often — the noise level can get pretty high.

Guests are well cared for. Servers know the food, and they provide appropriately paced deliveries. The wine list is substantial, with a reasonable number of selections by the glass. Pricing strikes me as appropriate for the venue. On balance, you won't be making any bad decisions here.

The menu provides a lot of welcome flexibility.

"Munchies" are aptly named. These could serve as a starter, enough to share, or nibble over conversation.

Fried Green Tomatoes with Smoked Trout

To prepare Fried Green Tomatoes and Smoked Trout, four firm slices of a green tomato are dredged in buttermilk, then coated with breadcrumbs and fried to a delightfully crisp crust. North Carolina smoked trout is blended into creme fraiche, sprinkled with clipped chives, and dabbed on top. This is a creative variation on a perennially popular dish.

Fried Oysters

Oysters are flash-fried to a dark brown, heavy crust. Most of the flavor comes from the crust, enhanced with a white barbecue sauce. Mussels, from Prince Edward Island, are joined on the platter with fire-roasted corn, cotija cheese, cilantro, shallots, garlic, and lime- almost a Mexican treatment.

"Small Plates" could serve double duty as starters or as light entrées.

Calamari

Calamari is sliced fresh into wedges, panko-crusted, and fried to a light crust. Two sauces, Thai chili and chipotle aioli, flank lime wedges in the presentation. Let's put this in context: it's in a league by itself, relative to other area restaurants.

Crab Cake

The Crab Cake is good, too, panko crusted for crispness, yet still light in texture, presented over leaf lettuces, joined on the plate by a tomato-corn relish and cilantro-jalapeno aioli. BW Shrimp are pan-seared, sprinkled with clipped shallots, arrayed with sliced grape tomatoes, all resting in Budweiser-Worcestershire broth with garlic.

BW Shrimp

From the salads, a Wedge places applewood smoked bacon, tomatoes, gorgonzola cheese and green onions in the center of an opened iceberg head, ladled with gorgonzola dressing. Lush!

Given the restaurant's name, you might expect a seafood focus in the "Mains" list, and coastal waters are indeed well represented.

Halibut is lightly blackened and seared, placed over polenta, with lump crabmeat, andouille sausage, and asparagus, all covered with bearnaise sauce. Salmon is pan-seared- a simple preparation in itself, rendered complex by the addition of heirloom tomatoes, sliced squash, mushrooms, cilantro, jasmine rice, in red curry broth.

Halibut

North Carolina Trout is pan-roasted, with two filets folded together, over wild mushroom risotto, flavored with aged balsamic vinegar and shaved Parmesan cheese, leaves of arugula scattered alongside. Slices of seared sushi-grade Tuna are stacked alongside fried rice interspersed with crab meat, decorated with hoisin and sriracha aioli, spring onions, and sesame seeds.

Salmon

Scallops turned out to be my favorite dish. Perfectly seared (I admire the technique!) they are arrayed around pappardelle pasta, with basil, white wine, lemon zest, and shaved Parmesan cheese. Heirloom tomatoes, spinach, and shallots are interspersed within the pasta, for a pleasant looking as well as pleasant tasting conception.

Trout

Of course, you are not restricted to seafoods. Another section of the menu lists steaks, chops, and chicken.

Scallops

I had mixed reactions to Steak Frites. This kitchen uses Manhattan strip steak, a superior cut compared to most other renditions, and the quality is evident in both depth of flavor and tenderness of texture. And I have never seen a steak cooked as precisely as this one — textbook pink interior, beautiful sear marks from the grill, ladled with black pepper demi-glace. But it was served cool to the touch. The steak is accompanied by hand-cut fries seasoned with Old Bay- a lot of Old Bay. That seasoning, at least to my taste, obliterates the excellent quality flavor of the fries themselves. Garlic parmesan aioli cuts the taste of salt and Old Bay somewhat. I asked our server before placing the order if another potato preparation could be substituted, but she said that Chef gets really upset when someone asks for a substitution.

That returned entrée, however, created the opportunity to try another selection that I wanted, with stellar results. Blue Water Grille is certainly not an Italian restaurant, but no Italian restaurant in my experience serves better Bolognese, few anywhere near this good. Beef and pork ragu is swirled into pappardelle pasta, excellent pecorino Romano cheese shredded thick on top. The result is an explosion of flavor! An especially strong list of zinfandel wines, plus Ferrari-Carano Sienna sangiovese blend, in addition to the Italian reds, create a great wine match opportunity for this entrée.

Key Lime Pie

Because I have liked Blue Water Grille so much in the past, I made several visits this spring, usually with friends. So I was able to sample several desserts. Cheesecake, wrapped in a tortilla and fried, is a knockout, both for flavor and visual impact. Key Lime Pie is appropriately tart, enhanced with baked meringue on the side. The sinfully rich Bread Pudding is studded with chocolate chips and flavored with caramel, Kahlua, and Bourbon.

Bread Pudding

Blue Water opened in November 2003. Margaret Ann Rierson manages the front of the house. She has been with the restaurant since January 2006. She joined the team as a server, then after a few years took over market reservations and other management duties. Jamie Witzleben became head chef two years ago. He is an Asheville-Buncombe Tech culinary program graduate, whose previous experience included the Grove Park Inn. He moved to the High Point area during the pandemic to be closer to family.

This restaurant continues to be ranked among the Triad's elite.

John Batchelor has been writing about eating and drinking since 1981. Over a thousand of his articles have been published. He is also author of two travel/cookbooks: Chefs of the Coast: Restaurants and Recipes from the North Carolina Coast, and Chefs of the Mountains: Restaurants and Recipes from Western North Carolina. Contact him at [email protected] or see his blog, johnbatchelordiningandtravel.blogspot.com.

Blue Water Grille

126 E State Avenue, High Point 27262

336-886-1010, bluewatergrillenc.com

Hours: 5-9:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 5-10 p.m. Friday & Saturday

Appetizers: $12-$16, Salads: $9-$16, Soups: $9, Small Plates: 14-$17, Entrees: $24-$52, Desserts: $9

Most recent visit: May 20

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