King’s Fish House

Some food writers treat “chain” as a dirty word, and either instantly or quickly dismiss any chain restaurant as not worthy of coverage. Since Orange County is home to so many chains, and because chains typically reflect successful and replicable concepts, we keep an open mind, and truly respect restaurant groups that can consistently maintain excellence across multiple locations. Put another way, when we say we didn’t enjoy our experience at a chain restaurant, it’s never because it’s a chain – something else about the experience was off.

Headquartered in Costa Mesa with OC restaurants in Huntington Beach, Laguna Hills, and Orange, King’s Fish House delivered one of those “off” situations when we visited the Orange location. We enjoyed parts of our meal – notably the service, their sourdough bread, and our ability to choose from a large assortment of raw oysters and clams, a nice bowl of New England clam chowder, and a perfectly good slice of key lime pie. But between the menu and the execution of many dishes, King’s struck us as being the seafood equivalent of an American steakhouse: an expensive place to have a fairly basic dinner.