Restaurants are lightening their menus as the weather warms up

Restaurants are lightening their menus as the weather warms up, adding bright fruit flavors and seasonal vegetables, as well as taking advantage of recent price decreases for seafood.

Asian-themed menus are also popping up this season.

Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, a 65-unit chain based in Newport Beach, Calif., recently launched a three-course spring prix-fixe menu for $39.95. That includes a choice of Caesar salad or shrimp consomme with herb dumplings and garden vegetables for an appetizer; broiled Scottish salmon with spaghetti squash, beurre blanc and crispy capers, or veal scaloppine with mushroom ravioli in gorgonzola cream sauce for the main course; and a white chocolate bread pudding for dessert.

Also based in Scottsdale, the 24-unit Kona Grill recently added an array of “skinny” options, including cocktails with fewer than 115 calories, such as a cucumber mojito, and entrees with fewer than 200 calories, including seven-spice ahi tuna, yellow tail with cucumber salsa, and halibut ceviche.

The Melting Pot chain has incorporated a Pacific island theme in some of its spring menu items, such as a “feng shui cheese fondue” featuring Gruyre cheese with white wine, mirin, sake, horseradish and chive havarti; lettuce wraps with mandarin-orange ginger dressing; and an array of proteins including kiwi lime shrimp, citrus-infused pork tenderloin and sushi-style ahi tuna.

The 31-unit Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant chain, based in Chattanooga, Tenn., has added a Pacific Rim menu through May, which includes menu items such as Kona coffee-rubbed sirloin, Korean barbecue beef tacos, macadamia-crusted mahi mahi bites, ahi spring rolls, teriyaki American Kobe burgers, garlic edamame, Asian chicken salad, miso-glazed tuna, macadamia-crusted chicken, and Kona coffee cheesecake.

Restaurant consulting from Technomic said it is seeing an abundance of seafood and citrus flavors on restaurants' spring menus this year.

The firm attributes the increase in seafood offerings to a recent drop in prices. Grilled shrimp, salmon and tilapia are particularly popular, Technomic said, as is grilled mahi mahi.

Other new additions Technomic noted were the tempura shrimp and lobster tail combo meal at Charlie Brown’s Steakhouse, crispy shrimp tacos at Carrows, blackened tilapia with crab-stuffed shrimp at Luby’s, and a fish wrap at Wienerschnitzel.

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Seasonal items are being highlighted at many independent restaurants as well, including Aurora in Brooklyn, N.Y., which is featuring ravioli with wild nettles, ricotta and pine nuts.

FARMbloomington in Bloomington, Ind., is serving local dandelions in salad with lardoons, bacon, a duck egg and a vinaigrette sweetened with local honey.

Rioja in Denver is offering asparagus and spring garlic soup with a smoked halibut brandade fritter. Also on the spring menu is a Dungeness crab salad with a crab-jicama-avocado roulade, carrot cumin vinaigrette and roasted raw carrots.

Luciano Pellegrini, chef of the Valentino Restaurant Group in Las Vegas, is cooking up spring lamb medallions with fava beans and red onion marmalade.

On the spring menu at 508 in New York City is a seafood ceviche of scallops, yellowfin tuna and octopus with mandarin oranges, avocado, cherry tomato, red onions, lime juice and cilantro. The restaurant is also serving a whole lobster with rock shrimp and oyster mushrooms on tagliatelle with a light tomato cream lobster sauce and chervil.

Also in New York, at i Trulli, pike with ramps, fingerlings and ramp pesto are on the menu.

At Big Jones in Chicago, Louisiana crawfish is being stuffed into quail, which is being served with preserved lemon curd, steamed asparagus and asparagus that has been shredded, marinated and served in ribbons.

At Branch 27, also in Chicago, English peas are being served with scallop tortellini in lobster sauce.

At American Seasons on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, the spring menu includes pan-fried cod with English peas, fingerling potatoes and morel jus.

Eastern Standard in Boston is serving halibut with Chanteney carrots, confit spring onions and baby pattypan squash.

At Library Bistro in Seattle, fiddlehead ferns sautéed garlic, Thai chiles, sesame and soy are a new menu addition.