I’ve been avoiding the Fresh Grill restaurant for months. I never liked Duke’s (which occupied that space for years before suddenly disappearing in a puff of smoke one day), and the memory of some of the horrendous meals I’ve been subjected to at various Dukes-around-town tended to color my opinion about that location.

But my friend the short blonde whirlwind (SBW) was visiting Bellevue for her monthly haircut, and said, how about some steak? And my mind went blank. I mean, sure, there’s the usual pricey Daniel’s Broiler or Ruth’s Chris, but where do I go, close by, to get a steak, other than the Keg in Kirkland? And my mind went to the Fresh Grill, which as I remembered a few months ago, was sporting some sort of sign about steak and seafood (completely at odds with their current sign about a soup and salad bar, and also at odds with their website about French and Italian food).

So off we went.

When we drove up, it was close to 8PM, and the place was deserted. SBW looked worried. I looked worried. We opted to go in and look at a menu. They have two menus — one with a chinese translation, and one in english. I got even more worried. SBW had wanted a steak, not chinese food. Reading through the menu didn’t alleviate my worries. It was a melange of foodstuffs — half the menu being casual foods like pizza, pasta, and sandwiches; the other half being tonier dishes whose ethnicities seemed to clash with each other, like coconut shrimp, portugese chicken, BBQ ribs, and filet mignon. I proudly admit I subscribe to the opinion that a chef can only do one thing well, and the more stuff you throw at a menu, the less things stick to it.

Let’s cut a long story short. The Fresh Grill, which opened 5 months ago, is obsessively controlled by a head chef who uses fresh ingredients for everything except 4 desserts which are trucked in, frozen. He uses olive oil to fry in, and a bare minimum of kosher salt (or is it sea salt? I forget) to season with. He’s the one who makes the bread they served up with dinner, as well as the asiago-cheese-bread that comprised my prosciutto and salmon sandwich. He’s the one that makes the other half dozen fresh desserts available at their dessert “bar” — cookies, brownies, cake, cheesecake, key lime pie, and flan. If the flan is any indication, sugar is used only sparingly, allowing other flavors to shine through. While dessert may in general not be good for you, this dessert is certainly not too bad for you either.

While the head chef may be the one who picks out all the produce for their small salad bar (fresh, crispy lettuce; spinach that isn’t slimy; a dozen different vegetables), Sue (the restaurant’s manager) rules over it with iron rod, choosing to keep small quantities out for display, and most of the goodies back in the fridge. It makes for more work replenishing it, but I like the fact that probably half the town hasn’t sneezed on my broccoli.

So why’s the place deserted on a Saturday night? Sue says that it usually is, around this time — their dinner crowd tends to come in early. Sounds like the retirees have found this place, but the younger crowd is avoiding it because there’s only a service bar and no real “bar area”. If that’s the case, this may be Bellevue’s best kept secret: a restaurant that serves good food, reasonably priced, where you can get a seat around 7 or 8, without having to fight through a crowd to get to it.

On the other hand, maybe I’ll get food poisoning and die. Stay tuned.

Highlights: Whatever you order, get a side salad (from the salad bar) + a fresh-made dessert for $2.95.

If you go: Say hi to Sue, and thank her and the chef for a job well done.

Related posts:

1. Dinner at 8: Sand Point Grill
2. Farm Fresh Family Challenge
3. Cafe Pirouette: dilemma
4. Amazon Fresh Continues to Expand
5. Blue Ginger: Service with a Smile