Get the Hook

Seafood is brain food" says the motto on the menu at Fish Express. Given the name of the place, an expectation of good fish served quickly would seem to be a no-brainer.

Things aren't going all that swimmingly inside Fish Express, a casual dining spot tucked into the northwest quadrant of Preston and Forest. At two visits a few days apart we suffer the old bait and switch when it comes to trying to eat the dinner we want. Order one thing and something different turns up. Side dishes become confused or, like the sauces, never appear at all. The menu, heavy on fish tacos and sandwiches, misleads.

Take the "mango slaw." It begs for an important ingredient: mango. Instead, the bowl is piled high with coarse green and purple cabbage shreds overmoistened by a clear, flavorless liquid. "Ginger Thai noodle salad" comes sans ginger, noodles, peanuts or anything that might translate on the taste buds as Thai; just a plate of ruffled field greens, more green and purple cabbage, a few mandarin orange slices, thready curls of raw carrot and that same wet stuff that sogs the slaw. The "lobster bisque," when we finally taste it, is a grayish-brown puréed something-or-other that in a blind taste test might well be labeled mushroom gravy and get no argument. No bits of lobster in it. No lobster essence of any kind. What's with that? "It's how they make it," says the sweating busboy as he clears away the unfinished bisque.

Waiting and waiting and waiting for entrées—after ordering, you get a number to stick on your table, like at Pei Wei—we spoon up more of our dining pal's chowder. It's nice enough, boasting some chunks of clam, potato, corn, onion and other texture enhancers. It's a bit heavy on the cream, but it is one dish at Fish Express that manages to live up to its billing.

During the marathon lull between starters and main dishes, we survey the brightly lit room, which seats around 100 on gently curved wooden chairs and stools under swathes of sail-like fabric hanging near the ceiling. It looks pretty at first glance, but study closer to see why this restaurant's feng shui is a chi killer. Bisected into two areas by the line to get to the order counter, the restaurant's bad flow pattern starts at the front door. Step inside during dinner rush and it's a whorl of people sitting, milling, leaning. Those trying to get in have to squeeze past those trying to get out.

There's no place for takeout-picker-uppers to stand or sit while they wait, and no easy egress for them once they've been handed their sacks of food, so like salmon struggling to head upstream, they clog the same chute as patrons straining forward to read menus and put in orders. The self-service beverage dispenser—out of ice while we're there—is placed in just the wrong spot between the register and the far side of the room by the mural of the underwater scene. Try getting back there, through the disorder of the ordering line, to refill a glass. Successfully making it from front door to counter to iced tea to table and out to the car again is a complicated, exhausting ordeal requiring a series of elbow jabs, bob-and-weaves and serious hip-checking.

So, they have loyal clientele already of attractive, young North Dallas families who bring oodles of tots with them. The moms are real cute, with shiny hair and core-fusion figures. The handsome dads look dazed, more than a little disappointed that when they rolled in the front door from work at 6:30, the wife announced, "We're eating out."

Fish must help fertility. For every two grown-ups, there are three or four little ones. Older kids are loosed on Fish Express like unleashed pups at a dog park. High-pitched yelps bounce off the hardwood floors, bare-topped tables and plate glass windows to blend with piped-in music and waiting-line chatter into a deafening roar. Without waiters to control things—or parents who care about other people's dining pleasure—the kiddos go berserk, bouncing balls, juggling cracker packets, doing everything but sitting and eating. Several young lords do laps around the room on those wheel-equipped Heelys shoes. It's a rugrat roller derby.