You can tell that The Sea Grille is good by the crowd of both tourists and locals that eat there every night. Located on Sparks Ave, between the Shell station and the Boys and Girls Club, it is a somewhat unobtrusive large building with amply parking in the rear. Supervised by E J Harvey, the Sea Grille has been providing creative and comforting meals for over 20 year. And for non-seafood enthusiasts, they do serve steaks and chicken as well.

The Sea Grille’s large menu lists a number of fish they will cook for you steamed or fried, as well as a number of more elaborate Island Favorites and Creative Coastal items and some nightly specials. They also have several soups, including E J Harvey’s award winning Quahog Chowder.

On our Wednesday visit this week, the dining room (and parking lot) were lively, but not completely full. For busy times and weekends, you definitely should make a reservation.

On this visit, we succumbed again to our favorite: Harvey’s Quahog chowder ($8) and their creative and colorful Roasted Beet Salad ($14) with herb crusted local goat milk cheese, onion, caramelized pecans and country dressing.

The chowder (a quahog is a large clam) was full of pieces of chopped clam along with potatoes, and garnished with paprika, had an absolutely delicious flavor. Don’t miss this one!

The beet salad, with the accompanying goat cheese (shown a 2 o’clock in the photo) was excellent, with a mixture of red and yellow beets, red onions and lettuce.

We ordered their nightly special, Miso-glazed Hake ($34), served with a couple of head-on shrimp, rice and a delicious sweet miso sauce. And sitting right on top were little “tree branches,” which turned out to be batter fried broccoli (shown along the top rear). They were so good, we’ll never steam broccoli again!

For our second entree, we ordered the Free Form Ravioli ($33), a single huge ravioli stuffed with seafood: shrimp, scallops, lobster, ricotta and mushrooms, with a crispy leek.

The Sea Grille never disappoints: their food is always excellent and reasonably priced. You can’t go wrong in this family-friendly restaurant.

• Nantucket