Willowcreek Grill

I have been wanting to try Willowcreek Grill for a long time. They are located on Vista in Boise, and they also operate the adjoining RAW sushi restaurant. So when I saw a Groupon ad for them I jumped on it.

So we visited last evening, we ended up not trying as many things as perhaps we had planned, due to a fortuitous situation. When you are at Willowcreek Grill you can also order from the RAW menu. Well, we now quite enjoy sushi and have eaten at RAW previously. So we ordered the Tempura Vegetables and Shrimp from RAW along with the Rattlesnake sushi roll. The tempura was crispy and nicely done with a perhaps a rather limited selection of vegetables, consisting of broccoli, carrots, mushrooms and red pepper. The red pepper was sliced whole horizontally which provided a lovely presentation. The dipping sauce served with them seemed a bit lacking as it was simply sweet and could have used an infusion of other flavors. The Rattlesnake roll was tasty,  it is mixture of spicy tuna, cream cheese and crispy shrimp topped with avocado, eel and various sauces. It has been our favorite when dining at RAW in the past.

So back to the Willowcreek Grill, we decided to share the Seafood Cioppino, which is a fisherman stew served over a bed of linguini. We are not well acquainted with this dish and that admittedly may have contributed to our lack of enthusiasm for the resulting entree. It is a medley of seafood; bay shrimp, salmon, cod and clams served in a tomato based sauce.  The sauce had a undertone we did not care for along with what we felt was a too strong tomato flavor. The salmon was the outstanding ingredient by far in this dish, it was fresh tasting with just the right amount of fish flavor and succulently tender, my wife set to just eating the salmon pieces.

Our server was very attentive and noticing our disaappointing reaction offered a replacement. She recommended the Thai Chicken Pasta, stating it was very good and quite popular. We accepted her offer and appreciated her professionalism.

I am afraid the pasta did not thrill us either. It tasted simply like peanut butter on noodles, with none of the hints of sesame, ginger or vinegar that could have livened it up.

Now for dessert, yes after all that we did order dessert, we did have a coupon to use up you know! We choose the key lime cheesecake, hoping the creaminess of a cheesecake to be the perfect compliment to the tartness of the key lime. It was not to be the case, as the bitterness of the lime completely overshadowed any of the cream cheese flavor on which we had counted. The chocolate crust had a pleasant flavor on its own but did nothing for the key lime.

We likely just chose poorly as the other diners appeared to be enjoying their offerings. We did notice a lot of burgers and sandwich plates with sweet potato fries. If  you are looking for a place to keep everyone happy where you can get sushi and standard American fare, the Willowcreek Grill is a good option.

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