"In the Kitchen - At East Bay Grille"

Now in it's fourth summer, East Bay Grille owners Paul Barbato and Tim Coloton have transformed the old McGrath's (remember those iceberg salads in the little wooden bowls?) into a fine dining establishment that has become a year-round dining mecca in Plymouth for locals and tourists alike.

Paul and Tim grew up together in Hyde Park and both enjoyed successful careers in the restaurant business (Paul owns Clancy's Restaurants on the Cape and Tim has The Fours in Boston and Quincy) before combining forces to open up the East Bay Grille along the Plymouth Waterfront.

We visited East Bay on a busy weekday night and sat in the main dining room with a view of the nicely landscaped grounds and clam flats at low tide in the bay. The young, hip but friendly staff (props included to our waiter CJ) kept the tables around us humming smoothly.

The wine list has a nice mix of both very reasonable wines (Hess Select Chardonnay for $23 a bottle) and splurges like the $59 a bottle Cakebread Chardonnay, an excellent wine from California, which can easily cost you $95 a bottle in town.

Now let's talk food: Easy Bay's menu, like its wine list, manages to balance sophistication with very reasonable prices. We ordered a cup of East Bay's award-winning clam chowder ($3.95 a cup, $4.95 a bowl), which has a nice creamy texture and shows the chef's mastery over chowder basics like the perfectly cooked red bliss potatoes and tender chopped Ipswich clams.

We also chose the lobster and crab rangoons, a new appetizer for $9.95. Puffed up much larger than their plain-Jane Chinese restaurant cousins, you can actually see the fresh lobster meat, crab and scallions amidst the creamy filling.

As much as I would have liked to review East Bay's tasty chicken liver appetizer (one of my personal faves), I will spare the liver-challenged among you this time around and isnstead focus on the Shrimp Diane ($10.95), which comes with five large shrimp perched atop foccaccia and button mushrooms and is served with a zippy Cajun sauce.

For our entrees, we selected the 10-ounce Blackened Salmon ($17.95), served on a crisp round scallion risotto cake with a tomato-based sauce and fresh asparagus, and the Waterfront Filet ($24.95), a 9-ounce filet mignon with two tempura shrimp, asparagus and bearnaise sauce. The filet was cooked aexactly as ordered - medium rare - as was the salmon, which was moist and balanced well with the scallion and tomato flavors of the risotto and the sauce.

East Bay has a well-rounded dessert menu; we went with the creamy and rich New York Cheesecake and White Chocolate & Raspberry Torte (both $5.95).

East Bay's blend of fine dining in a casual waterfront atmosphere makes it one of the best restaurants in Plymouth for both locals and visitors.