Sac Mag's Kira O'Donnell's pallate and mine usually match up well. If she says a restaurant's good, then I generally like it too. But I have to disagree with her assessment of her recent trip to The Waterboy. Says O'Donnell:

The meal was superb – from the meatball-dotted Italian wedding soup and salt cod croquettes to the firm, moist swordfish, accompanied by roasted root vegetables and asparagus. At the end of the meal, her crusty, warm apple crostata arrived adorned with a birthday candle – a bright and cheery ending to a fabulous evening.

Read her entire review in Sac Mag.

I ate there on Monday night to celebrate our wedding anniversary, a return trip for me after a couple years and the first visit for my wife. We started with the sweetbreads ($14) - which were truly superb. For our entrees, we ordered the fish of the day, swordfish ($28) and the sea scallops ($25). The entrees were well executed, but not spectacular. We ended up spending about $135 for the two of us, including two drinks each, but for that kind of money, the meal should have been memorable and not just very good. To use a basketball analogy, I hoped for a Blake Griffin slam dunk, but I ended up with routine layup. I do want to point out that the service was excellent.

The Waterboy is clearly very successful judging by the fact that they had a full restaurant on a Monday night. Maybe I'm not their target audience, but my meal and experience this week reminds me why I hadn't returned sooner.

Previously: Waterboy owner Rick Mahan and Sac Bee restaurant reviewer Blair Anthony Robertson get in a kerfuffle over Waterboy review in the Sac Bee.

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