Restaurant Review - Mission Oak Grill

This week my wine-night buddies and I hit the Mission Oak Grill in Newburyport. Bonta in Hampton, NH and Hagan's Grill, also in Hampton, had been our go-to locations until a recent turn of events. We were faithful, dedicated patrons of both places until some unfortunate incidents involving mealy tomatoes, disappointing cookies and milk, new chefs, and bad service. When I say faithful I am talking really faithful - like weekly patronage for 2+ years. I think we paid for our little waiter Zack's first year of college tuition. Note to Bonta and Hagans: When you have a formula that is working well, stick with it!!! We were going to give Bonta one more shot this week but decided to switch it up. We typically split a couple apps and get salad's as our entrees, so that is what we look for in a menu...and good wine of course!

Mission Oak Grill is located in an old, converted church right in downtown Newburyport. They've done a great job renovating the space, so the restaurant has an upscale steakhouse-type atmosphere, with an open kitchen so you can watch the action. I'd describe it as a steakhouse with a bit of Brazilian/Argentinian flair - instead of Bearnaise sauce, you'll find chimichurri sauce accompanying most steaks. They serve a wide variety of steaks and seafood, some grilled simply and some in more complex preparations. We picked it for Wine Night because of the large app and salad selection. There is also a half-price bar menu from 5-7pm Mon - Thurs, which is an incredible value. We split the margarita pizza off the bar menu which was large enough for each of us to have two slices plus one left over, for $4.50. The bar menu also has burgers, meatball sliders, sandwiches, and more.

The pizza was definitely tastey. Instead of regular tomato sauce they used a sun-dried tomato sauce, and added fontina cheese to the standard mozarella. We also split the crab cake appetizer, which was served with chorizo and a black bean-pineapple salsa. That got high marks too. For the salad course, two of us got a grilled shrimp caeser and one got the mixed greens, which had dried cranberries and nuts. The grilled shrimp caeser was good - large, fresh grilled shrimp, creamy dressing - but lacked, salt, pepper, or perhaps both. Still, we've had some really unfortunately shrimp caeser wine night situations (remember the Tavern anyone?) so all in all it wasn't bad. We rarely get dessert, but we had some good news to celebrate so we decided to splurge with a s'more brownie sundae. I'd say it was worth it - a huge, warm, rich brownie with a thin layer of chocolate sauce, sitting on a pool of melted marshmallow, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream that was coated in crushed graham crackers.

Overall I would definitely recommend this place and will be back. With a menu ranging from tuna tartare and porcini-dusted scallops, to plain grilled steaks and chicken sandwiches, there is something for everyone on the menu.