Thanks for the FYI, @westsidegal.
Does anyone know more about the place? Is the cooking style Asian, Italian,… uh, multi-ethnic?
I used to drive by this place a lot in the past. Glad to hear it’s good. Maybe I’ll stop in one day…
It’s been on my “check out soon” list for…years. For some reason we always end-up somewhere else.
Friends who have been said it’s hard to quantify the style - healthy California with a few Asian touches seemed to be the approach. (But that’s hearsay.)
That would seem to be helpful information for a review to include…
Elsie:
the main defining force appears in this statement from the review:
“No butter, MSG or shortening used in cooking. Low sodium. Low calories.”
fwiw, that statement, to me, IS “the style” and, to me, it is worth TONS MORE than if a restaurant were to be adhering to any other style.
if the fish is fresh and well-prepared (i.e. not overcooked, not overwhelmed with wierd sauces, not floating in grease, etc), and if i’m not “spending” a weeks worth of calories on one meal, i’m a happy camper.
MyAnnoyingOpinions:
so, is today snark day?
Agree, Westside Gal. Makes it much more possible and probably to visit!
FWIW, I didn’t sense anything snarky about @MyAnnoyingOpinions’s comment. Of course, YMMV.
I don’t read a ton of food reviews, but I do think it’s not uncommon for reviews to include some information about the ethnic style of the food, when applicable (or to even state that there is no particular ethnic style).
I think it’s particularly applicable in the case of Fanta-Sea Grill since Pasadena is perhaps a bit of an outlier vs. the rest of the SGV since it doesn’t have a ton of Chinese food. I mean, how often have we seen a poster reply, “I’m looking for _____, but, please, don’t recommend [ethnic cuisine A] or [ethnic cuisine B].”
So, while the no butter, MSG, etc., does provide valuable information about the nutritional aspects of the food (which is a very important issue for you, I assume), it doesn’t really say anything about the flavor profile (and the restaurant doesn’t have an on-line menu), which might be a very important issue for other posters (incl me).
It also literally tells you nothing about the actual amount of calories, so it is basically value-less.
PGC:
ok, i am speaking as a former private chef (in the days when the dinosaurs roamed the earth)
when one enforces a limitation like this:
“No butter, MSG or shortening used in cooking. Low sodium. Low calories.”
you have, in one fell swoop, severely limited the kind of dishes that you can offer
if you were to then to superimpose an ADDITIONAL limitation of “style” as YOU define the word (i.e. meaning cuisine A or cuisine B) you basically are left with practically nothing in your menu quiver.
so, it makes perfect sense for a restaurant that is offering "“No butter, MSG or shortening used in cooking. Low sodium. Low calories.”
to NOT limit itself ADDITIONALLY in terms of your definition of “style” .
the “style” is LOW FAT SEAFOOD
it’s too bad that the restaurant isn’t close to me. it cooks in my favorite style.
HAELDAUR:
it does, though tell you A LOT about the RELATIVE calories to most other restaurant food.
any seasoned calorie counter knows that many types of seafood (shellfish, in particular) are low cal especially relative to many types of meat and poultry .
the WILDCARD would be the additional, calorically-dense, FAT (at over 100kcal/ Tablespoon) that is sometimes hidden in the dish (often hard to visually discern) which can change EVERYTHING.
you don’t need to know much beyond the type of seafood (i.e. no salmon belly) and the fact that additional fat has not been used in it’s preparation, to make a pretty accurate judgement about it’s caloric load.
i completely DISAGREE with your assertion that without a specific calorie count the information is “value-less.”
might be value-less to you, but for MANY other people (folks who have been counting calories for a while) it is MORE THAN ENOUGH information to allow them to see if the food will fit into their diet.
It’s been years since I’ve been to Fanta-Sea Grill, but I do remember their style, as the article and @westsidegal describes, as low-fat seafood. There might have been some Cal-Asian flavors. We didn’t frequent often when we lived in South Pasadena only because quality seafood comes at a cost, but the restaurant itself is very casual so it didn’t feel like a splurge place (even though it was on our budget). We usually ended up getting our local seafood fix at Senor Fish or Gerlach’s. Thanks for sharing the article.
i miss grach. especially his seafood pasta which would feature whatever was available that day.
Not meant snarkily; just a genuine critical response: that seems to me like important and relevant info to put in a review.
A helpful clarification for those of who who aren’t cooks! 
Wow no wonder the review had so little information about the food… Sounds like the worst restaurant I can possibly imagine eating at.
Thanks! Glad I didn’t waste time looking into this place further.
Any comment on anything is considered snark I believe.
asesthete:
“best” and “worst” are subjective.
that said
even i could tell, from the restaurants that you have liked and disliked in the past,
that this is not your kind of place. . . .
if it were located closer to me geographically, it WOULD be MY kind of place.
(look at my handle: WESTSIDEgal)
different strokes for different folks
also, to me, there was A LOT said about the food, just not a lot about the stuff that matters to you.
for me, the first thing i think about is a meal’s potential caloric “price”
similar story for vegan, raw, etc.
where the first “style” is SO limiting that you’d be down to having practically nothing in your quiver if you added another, overlapping “style”.
more and more, these days, i’m seeing “styles” based on nutritional constraints rather than flavor profiles
Good point. It’s not like Cafe Gratitude or Golden Mean advertise a specific ethnic style. For some reason, I had never thought about that w/ a healthy seafood place…