Seafood Shack’s flavorful mussels, clams fresh-from-the-ocean sweet

There's a whole school of lore, no doubt based on fact, that French haute cuisine originally developed as an effort to disguise the off-flavors of meat that was, shall we say, of a certain age. Pour on a pool of Bernaise and you might not notice that the beef has acquired a rancid off-taste.

While modern food-storage and food-safety practices have rendered the need for such practices obsolete and their current usage generally a bonus instead of a necessity, subtle things can be done to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, especially when it comes to seafood. Popcorn shrimp, for example, was invented because a resourceful restaurateur saw a way to use broken shrimp. And it's my theory that this is why mullet is nearly always fried or smoked.

Steamers are at the opposite end of that spectrum. By nature very simple, as the name implies, this preparation of seafood - shellfish, usually - is so close to au naturel that any sins will be revealed. And what all this leads up to is a ringing endorsement for the Seafood Shack at Treasure Island.

The Seafood Shack is an unprepossessing kind of place, tucked away at the rear of the casino. The interior is attractive enough, with a bunch of nautical stuff applied to a vaguely Asian canvas. While we were seated promptly, it was a while before our server gave us a finger wave, even longer before he actually got to us. Add to that some initial beverage confusion and we didn't have the highest hopes.

The mussels and clams steamer combo ($15.95) put any doubts to rest. With just a touch of parsley and red pepper and a light bath of white wine and butter the flavors shone through clearly, and they were fresh-from-the-ocean sweet. I personally am not as enamored of mussels as the person across the table and yet the one I sampled was thoroughly enjoyable, the delicate littlenecks even better - briny morsels of sweet ocean flavor. With them was served French bread for mopping up all of the juices.

We had started with the ambiguously named lobster and seafood stuffed mushrooms ($11.95). How much of the stuffing was lobster and how much was the other, unnamed seafood? Hard to tell, but there was lots more seafood than stuffing, the seasoning was delicate and the sauce on which the mushrooms rested good enough to cover up just about anything, although in this case it didn't have to.

I'll admit I wasn't expecting a whole lot from the Cajun Seafood Pasta ($18.95); I was curious as much as anything. But there they were, tons of crawfish ­- two whole ones on top, plus lots of tails mixed with the shrimp and the crab, enough jalapeno slices to anesthetize the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and a creamy, spicy sauce cloaking it all, atop linguine. It was rich and satisfying, the seafood flavors true, but I had three quibbles with this one: the shrimp were tail-on, and the sauce made removing those tails a messy proposition; the Andouille seemed unusually mild; and they ought to consider a half-portion, because this was enough for a longshoreman.

As you've no doubt figured out, the sauces that were integral parts of the latter two dishes were of sufficient body to cover a multitude of sins, though none was evident.

But as for the steamers? Nothing was hidden there, because nothing needed to be.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474, or email her at hrinella@
reviewjournal.com.