Jack's Oyster Bar & Fish House
336 Water St., Oakland, CA
http://jacksoakland.com/#menu
Review date: Oct 7, 2014

Jack's is one of the two new restaurants on the suddenly revitalized Jack London Square area on Oakland's Embarcadero, just across the water from Alameda. The other is plank (no caps), the massive bocce/brewpub/game arcade/bar/café experiment that has taken over the former Barnes & Noble space. Beer and games win out over books, every time.

Jack's is modest enough that you might miss it. It's a narrow-fronted, long space squeezed in-between The Forge (which we tried and didn't like on Oct 2013) and Bocanova (which we've tried twice and found too erratic for our patience). The owner of Bocanova also owns Jack's.

As you walk in, one long side is mostly bar in the front, with reasonably comfortable tables/banquette seating opposite and a small quieter dining room past the bar. There's also considerable seating outside, which is useful as long as we're going to endure the hot summer days we've been having.

But we were here for dinner, and with a break in-between heat spells it was a little too cool to sit outside. It wasn't crowded, as we were eating early. There's two TVs, sound off, on either side of the bar, currently tuned to the Giants vs Nationals playoff game. Boomer music – Fleetwood Mac, Frank Sinatra pop – was playing softly. Like most places nowadays, Jack's has the potential to be ear-splitting when full.

I started with the Rockefeller spinach salad, which had bacon, apple, fried oysters, and ranch dressing. I asked that the blue cheese dressing be subbed for the ranch, and that it be served on the side. Instead, the spinach leaves were already dressed with a creamy mild dressing, with crumbles of blue cheese in a cup on the side. 

Still, it wasn't ranch so I was able to share some with Carlos. The bacon was thick dice, well browned. The apples were actually thin slices of pear apples, a nice touch. The fried oysters were very good, although the few shreds of raw red onion were too strong and should have been rinsed. It was a good salad, not great, but the fried oysters lifted it into very good. Jack's assumes most people will share, so the waitress had already brought over extra plates and forks.

Carlos asked for bread, which is brought only on request. It contains one large-sized ciabatta roll which was slightly stale, and three mini-corn muffins. They were sweet, spiked with jalapeno, and would have been wonderful if they hadn't also been generously sprinkled with sea salt on top. The butter they bring is also salted, and as we didn't realize they had salted the corn muffins, we did our usual of slathering butter on them. One bite was enough to convince us that was a terrible idea. Carlos always treats bread as an excuse for as much butter as possible, but even he decided the muffins (which he liked) were better without the addition of more saltiness, so he ate the last one unbuttered.

Happy Hour is from 4-6 p.m. here, so Carlos was in time to have the $1.50 oyster special. Jack's has six different types of oysters daily, and these were Totten, from South Puget Sound in Washington state. They're small; Carlos thought they were okay but nothing special. He ate all twelve; I don't care for raw oysters. Jack's brings you a trio of dipping sauces: housemade cocktail, jalapeno chile, and cucumber. 

While Carlos had the oysters, I had the Dungeness crabcake, with corn purée and corn. It's a very large crabcake, with a greaseless thin breadcrumb crust. The corn purée is on the bottom of the plate, and atop the crabcake are fresh white corn kernels and...popcorn. 

Had the execution matched the portion size, it would have been one of the world's greatest crabcakes. Sadly, it didn't even come close. It was ridiculously salty, both the crab itself and the crust. It didn't seem there was excess salt in the breadcrumb mixture, but instead after frying, the crabcake was generously sprinkled with salt. 

I picked the grilled salmon Atlantic style, supposedly with butter beans, potatoes, kale, and pesto. I say supposedly, because there were no beans and no pesto, so whatever "Atlantic style" was intended to be, became instead a giant square of salty salmon filet, set atop an oily (and salty) mix of halved fingerlings, sautéed kale (which picked up a lot of grease in the cooking), and a couple of artichoke hearts. 

The salmon wasn't that fresh, but it certainly didn't need the extra salt flakes which had been generously sprinkled over the pan-crisped skin. And it probably didn't need the overcooking, either. The mix of baby kale leaves, potatoes and artichokes was tasty, but much too oily – the kale literally oozed grease when chewed. I took the skin off, which was a shame as I enjoy crispy salmon skin, but it made the filet tolerable. 

Carlos was so-so on the cioppino. It had a very generous amount of mixed seafood – not only crab body portions, squid, octopus, lots of fish, a whole unshelled prawn (complete with head, legs, and whiskers), and some of the largest mussels we've ever seen. 

On the bad side, there were too many tomatoes, so with all the shellfish and more salting, this heavily reduced, thick salty broth was ready to go over a big bowl of starchy pasta instead of being eaten by itself. Two pie-shaped wedges of parsley-speckled garlic bread were soaked with garlic-flavored EVOO...and salt.

When the waitress came over to ask how we liked the meal, we mentioned our concern about the erratic oversalting. After we finished our entrées, the manager came over and we discussed the issue further with her. She asked if there was anything she could do to comp us, but we assured her we didn't want any freebies and were only offering constructive criticism. 

According to her, Jack's has received criticism that the food wasn't salted enough (there are no salt shakers on the very minimally-sized tables), so they had increased the salt by sprinkling it over the top of the food! She said we were the first to complain about the sodium levels, a comment which frankly depressed us.

If it hadn't been for the saltiness, we would have rated Jack's as a B+. But that saltiness undermines basically good concepts. Stale bread and erratic beverages didn't help. Carlos drank coffee with cream and sugar all the way through dinner – four cups of it. The first cup had an interesting chocolate aftertaste, but the refills did not. I asked for tonic water and lime, and the first glass was surprisingly sweet. I got a second glass, which wasn't sweet at all. We didn't get charged for two tonic waters, so it's entirely possible I was given club soda the second time in error. 

We skipped dessert. Carlos ended with a last cup of coffee – black, this time – and I had a decaf cappuccino. Jack's uses a rather harsh dark roast for both coffee and espresso, so having the cappuccino come as more of a latte, with excellent creamy foam, was fine.

Of the Jack London Square restaurants we've tried, we'd judge Jack's to be better than Forge, Kincaid's, or Il Pescatore (which isn't saying much, admittedly). It's slightly better than Scott's and equal with sibling Bocanova, but well below Lungomare. We have yet to try Haven, which is possibly the best of the lot; so far every time I've checked the menu it wasn't something we were interested in. I'll keep looking; we'll get to Haven one of these days.

Jack's wasn't good enough we want to return. It isn't a style of cooking we admire or like. Lately we have been experiencing a number of these new restaurants with their emphasis on "value": large portions of reasonably good quality ingredients, but with sloppy cooking overall. We received a lot of seafood for the price, but none of it was especially high in quality, and most of the dishes were heavy on salt, oil, and more salt. 

I would say if you are looking for large portions of good food at reasonable prices, the only place we would recommend is Market Restaurant in St. Helena. Market was at least careful in execution, with good technique and cleaner flavors than Brix/Napa, Café Bastille/SF, Goose & Gander/St. Helena, and now Jack's. 

Frankly, the Safeway frozen shrimp I cooked the night before in roasted garlic butter, with a touch of lemon pepper and a spritz of oyster sauce, was infinitely superior eating to anything this kitchen showed us.

Two people, dinner: one dozen Happy Hour oysters at $1.50/each, one starter, one salad, two entrées, three beverages, with tip came to $135. I had a $100 discount card so we applied that to the total, for which we were grateful, because this meal was only worth this much in terms in quality.