Buck & Rider - Seafood in the desert

[Lunchbox]

We hit the new Buck & Rider at Epicenter at Agritopia in Gilbert on Saturday night. Pretty hard. And for a new restaurant, they pretty much nailed it. I haven't been to the other locations but I was impressed. The only thing that I was salty about was that they ran out of the halibut at about 5:30 pm and when I went to order it at 6:30... Well you can see what happened there... But what can you do, it was crazy busy in there.

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We started with some solid cocktails. I had the beachcomer which was basically a mai tai. Good start.

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They made us wait really long for our table (beyond our reservation) so they sent out a plate of calamari right away. Decent. I'm not a huge fan so I'll never rave about calamari. Ever. But this was good.

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Voodoo Fried rice - shrimp, chicken, peas, gochujang, red fresnos. Really tasty. This is on the Restaurant Week menu and I highly recommend it. I did add a little soy sauce to punch it up a bit but it was tasty.

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We ordered a burger as an app and split it 4 ways. Really f'n tasty. Lots of Umami. "B&R Reserve beef, Beecher’s smoked cheddar, crispy shallots, served with french fries". Fries were great too. But that cheddar cheese was so good.

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Baked Yuzu crab roll: blue crab, tuna, serrano pepper, soy paper, avocado. Super nice rolls. Such fresh seafood.

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Spicy tuna roll: sushi grade tuna, avocado, spicy aioli on crispy rice. I could eat 17 plates of this. I'm such a sucker for crispy rice.

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Hamachi crudo. I mean, seriously, such an amazing dish. swimming in a Thai chili sauce and ponzu. It just melted in your mouth. Outstanding.

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I had a steak. It was fine. Seasoned ok, cooked well. Blah blah blah. They were out of the halibut as I mentioned so I took one for the team. But I paired it with a half lobster. Came with a claw too. Ok, cool. I don't like picking my meat out of a claw and I'd rather have a small whole tail but it was all good. This particular claw was a bitch to get open. Here's my steak:

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A friend tried the crabcake with a side of shrimp scampi because she was getting full. They were both good. Crab cake didn't impress me too much but I'm not a crab cake guy. Shrimp was tasty though.

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My wife loves swordfish and she loved the lemon caper beurre blanc they served with it. I had a bite and it was pretty good.

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Dessert was gelato for restaurant week and the other thing they had didn't sound any fun so we just had some gelato. Meh. I don't know if they were going for a flower or what with that thing... It was pistachio flavor and it was a little light on the pistachio flavor. But overall a really good experience. My wife loves her some fish so I'm sure we'll be back...

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And if it's your birthday or anniversary or whatever they'll put your shit on the flipboard... It wasn't my birthday but they wished me it anyway... (Not really, there was another Zach with a birthday that night. )

Buck & Rider - Gilbert
https://buckandrider.com/
Epicenter at Agritopia
3150 E. Ray Rd.
Gilbert, AZ 85296
gilbert@buckandrider.com
480.536.9494

[Skillet Doux]

Bob Lynn definitely gets some nice product. When I've had issues there, it certainly wasn't with the quality of the seafood.

The OG B&R is very close to our house, so I drop in from time to time, usually to hit the raw bar, though I do that less often since they narrowed the happy hour(s). I used to be able to go for a late lunch, pound a bunch of shrimp and get out of there without doing too much damage.

It's interesting to me that they're expanding rather rapidly all of a sudden after, what... eight years of the original? Late bloomer, by today's standards.

[dbankert]

I've only ever been to this B&R location at Epicenter in Gilbert, was happy with the quality of the seafood, but you definitely pay for it. My main complaint was that Happy Hour is only allowed in one part of the restaurant, because you have to read the happy hour menu off the wall. They didn't really explain this when we got there (at 4pm, mistakenly thinking it wouldn't be crowded then). So we waited the usual time for a busy restaurant, only to be crammed against a counter. We did save a lot of money ordering the items from the happy hour menu, but it was pretty limited, and those items weren't anything extraordinary (e.g., voodoo rice, calamari, shrimp ceviche). We bought a roll off the regular menu that was fantastic, and I had fun with the oyster selection.

My guess is this will be my go-to place for the raw bar. Plus, that pic above of the hamachi crudo looks great, can't wait to try it and other rolls.

[Lunchbox]

My main complaint was that Happy Hour is only allowed in one part of the restaurant..

<rant> Oh how I despise this policy... Restauranteurs, please stop doing this. Having pricing differ based on the geographic location of your seat is so incredibly stupid to me. If we're imbibing between the posted hours, then please sell us the half-priced chicken wings in the dining room too. Or don't have happy hour at all then. I know the marketing and $ales logic behind it (former bar owner) but it's still a stupid policy. </rant>

[BillBuitenhuys]

We only went once to the OG location. The fish in both of our dishes (halibut and, um, something else) were both decimated to sawdust. Haven't felt a need to return.