Arnies Northshore: There's A Catch Here

XX Arnies Northshore, 1900 N. Northlake Way (with branches at Mukilteo and Edmonds). Seafood. Lunch ($8 to $12) 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Dinner ($9 to $15) 5 to 9 p.m. nightly. Sunday brunch ($8) 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. View lounge, full bar. Major credit cards. Nonsmoking area. Reservations: 547-3242. --------------------------------------------------------------- Quo Vadis, Arnies?

This is a fish house with a mission, poised on the edge of new directions and with a new hand on the tiller.

Diana Isaiou, until recently the executive chef with Cafe Sport, Bellevue, and prior to that the chef who took over the original Cafe Sport at the Pike Place Market when Tom Douglas left to start the Dahlia Lounge, has been installed at the chief of cuisine at Arnies Northshore.

It is an intriguing appointment, one that suggests pending innovation at this view dinner house that began its life as a nautically natty spot known as the America's Cup.

Arnies, which had opened it first restaurant in Mukilteo in 1978 and added a second in Edmonds in 1981, took over the space from the America's Cup in 1985. All three restaurants featured quality seafood menus (line-caught Bruce Gore salmon, etc.) at moderate prices - and they still do. They were named for Arnie Challman, an avid fisherman and sportsman, who helped his son Peter and partner Rod Peterson begin the enterprise.

All of the restaurants did well and the two suburban places continued with the original concept. But the growing sophistication of the Seattle dining scene - and the heightened pressure of competition around Lake Union - suggested that changes were in order.

The company, Arnies Restaurants Northwest Inc. of Mountlake Terrace, hired chef Kathy Casey as a menu consultant. Casey brought in the talented Isaiou.

Isaiou's imaginative touches - like a corn pancake with red peppers and onions, topped with sour cream and delicate red tobiko caviar, splendid crab cakes, and so forth - are already apparent on the daily fresh sheets; they are both welcome and needed.

But other elements of change are indicated. No chef, no matter how talented, can turn out inspired dinners if small details in the kitchen and dining room are not themselves looked after.

A couple of examples: The above-mentioned corn pancake was delightful as an appetizer, and when it was finished a dab of congealed corn batter was stuck to the knife which was left on the plate. The server came along, took the knife from the plate, placed it back on the polished wood table and brought on the main course.

A gastronomic crime? No, certainly not. An appetizing way to cut into a fillet of grilled black cod? Not really. But the soiled knife should have been replaced immediately. It's a small thing. But big deals and great meals are made of accumulated small details.

A green salad the next day was artfully arranged, and augmented with a sprightly corn relish. But the several of the leaves of romaine were speckled with black blemishes; the edges where they had been torn were all turning brown. Fully three-quarters of the main ingredient of the dish - lettuce - should have been discarded. And discarded hours ago.

Chefs don't make errors like that, but careless underlings (and lax garde-manger standards) do.

The black cod was grilled to perfection. But loaded with bones. Bones can be removed from fillets of seafood - and they almost always are. Usually they are removed in the kitchen; sometimes they are removed from the diner's teeth.

I don't want to leave the impression that Arnies Northshore is riddled with incompetence. It's not. The menu's mainstays - halibut, ling cod and salmon dinners - are done with an excellence born of practice.

Grilled Fresh Alaskan Coho ($15.95) was served with sauteed baby chanterelles, perfectly cooked and generous enough to have half the portion saved for a latter day lunch.

Prawns and Scallops Marinara ($13 as a dinner; $8.95 as supper in the lounge) was outstanding. The seafood had been sauteed with mushrooms, finished with a splash of wine - a cream sherry, I believe - tossed with fettucine, then augmented with a rich tomato sauce over one half of the serving and with fresh-grated Parmesan cheese over the other.

A similar dish, Dungeness Crab Fettucine ($14.95), was heaped with crab blended with black olives, capers, lemon and garlic. The enveloping Parmesan cream sauce was a bit dense.

The menu isn't all seafood. Steaks are handled well, especially three choices of pepper steaks: a 7-ounce New York for $14.45, a 10-ounce New York for $16.95 or a seven-ounce filet mignon for $17.95. They are finished with green peppercorns, brandy and a rich demiglace.

Very popular are Arnies early dinners, a choice of several four-course dinners from the main menu for a total of $10.95. You have to be seated by 6 p.m.

The Northshore has a splendid view of Lake Union, Gasworks Park and the city skyline beyond. It is particularly appealing at sunset.