The Fish Market - Del Mar

Restaurant currently closed (but will open soon). The retail fish market inside the restaurant remains open and continues to be a very good resource for home cooks looking for fresh seafood to serve to their families. The Solana Beach store's number of offerings is a bit limited but the quality is top notch. The downtown location's retail market boasts a better (5 star) selection but both stores are excellent and worthy of checking out.

I got lobster bisque and an lobster tail to-go. Heated up the soup, chopped up the tail and sauted it in some butter. Put all of it in some bowls with some puff pastry on top. Baked it for 15 minutes. Amazing! Perfect date night with a Sex and the City marathon on E! I hate the stay at home orders... but at least local restaurants make it enjoyable! 💜

I've driven by The Fish Market in Solana Beach, near Del Mar Race Track, numerous times, but today my wife & I decided to stop in. We'd been walking on the beach at Del Mar, and the wind out there chilled us a bit. So we ordered 2 bowls of New England Clam Chowder here, hoping it would warm us up. I love seafood, and good clam chowder of either style. The "To Go," white chowder was hot, a nice creamy consistency, just the right amount of cut up potatoes with a few clams found in each bowl. It was the taste that left both of us underwhelmed. Just not enough flavor, IMO. Their New England Clam Chowder needed more something. It didn't have bacon, or even a mild essence of the sea. I was hungry and really wanted to like this chowder, but it fell short for me. The sourdough rolls we ordered on the side were warm and tasty. Can't comment on the rest of the menu, as this is all we tried.

Our experience at The Fish Market was very positive and felt badly that anyone would review them otherwise. We were there for my birthday so we celebrated with Mai Tai's and happy hour appetizers which were an excellent value. We ordered shrimp lettuce wraps and mussels which both had delicious sauces that accompanied them. This was followed by a bowl of Manhattan Clam Chowder which is the only reason my score is a 4 rather than a 5 star rating. The soup was flavorless when I believe it was supposed to be spicy which it was far from being. I ordered Ahi Tuna with vegetables and au gratin potatoes. The tuna was a reasonable size and delicious. The vegetables were mostly string beans and gorgeous ones. The potatoes were good, not great. But altogether I was very happy. They were very kind to comp me a free birthday dessert. It didn't take long to gobble it down! Overall, great experience. Good service. Good food. Good value!

SAVED US ! My wife and I had no big plans for Xmas Day.....our close family visits were already done so we were on our own on Xmas Day. I suggested we go big on some Lobster for dinner so we headed to one of our fav places in Cardiff to buy Lobster...the line was a mile long so we ended up coming here. My American wife tells she used to come here for work related dinners in the 80's when she lived in Denver, CO. These guys have been around a LONG TIME ! We bought a couple of 10 oz frozen Lobster tails and a slab of Boudin Sourdough Bread. Friendly service from the guy behind the counter made our first visit together even better ! Gee we might even come back and have dinner here one day !