RESTAURANT REVIEW:

There are times when I am just too busy to stop and take an hour or 90 minutes and sit down for lunch.

When I am not able to do that and fast food is pretty much my only option, my choices of quality and healthy menu items are pretty limited.

El Pollo Loco is a decent way to go or a chicken sandwich from one of the burger places, but it is usually going to be a high-calorie, high-fat meal that will lead me to the gym for a few days of work shedding the after-effects.

That is why I was intrigued when Long John Silver’s said it would offer a low-fat menu by the end of October.

I found that extremely ironic, since Long John Silver’s is known for some of the fattiest food around. Deep-fried chicken, fish, French fries, hush puppies and cole slaw are all staples on the menu.

But the company decided it wanted to try a healthier route, and customers might actually embrace these additions. I know I did.

There are three entrees on the Freshside Grille menu — shrimp scampi, grilled tilapia and grilled Pacific salmon.

All three of the entrees are $7.95 and come with the same side dishes. The first side dish is a vegetable medley. There are green beans, sliced carrots and yellow squash. I was expecting the worst with the medley, but all three were steamed perfectly, not mushy or undercooked at all. They had the lowest calories of any of the items on the menu, with 60 and 2 grams of fat.

The other three sides — breadstick, seasoned rice and corn — are all carbohydrates and have more calories than the entrée items.

The entrees are served on the rice and pushing half of the rice aside will not leave you starving. There is five ounces of rice and at 270 calories and 4.5 grams of fat, you can avoid some of those calories by not eating all of it.

The rice is good and has a pilaf-like quality to it. It mixed well with the fish and shrimp.

The breadstick and the corn you could probably choose between. The corn is cooked with butter oil and still has 150 calories and 10 grams of fat. The breadstick is no better. It has 170 calories and 3.5 grams of fat. If I ate this in the car I would probably decline the corn because it is rather messy.

I first had the grilled tilapia, and it was my favorite of the three. It is 4.1 ounces of fish and pre-grilled and packaged and then reheated at the restaurant. Again, I was surprised at the apparent freshness of the fish. I have had tilapia at nice restaurants and paid three times what I paid for it here and it wasn’t nearly as good.

The Pacific salmon was a bit disappointing. I couldn’t detect a distinct salmon taste and would have sworn the fish was mahi-mahi, not salmon.

Red bell pepper sauce didn’t work that well with the salmon. I probably would have preferred a dill or tarragon spice mix. The garlic and herb mix used with the tilapia was far better.

The tilapia is also the better choice calorie-wise. There are 115 calories and 2.5 grams of fat as opposed to 150 calories and 5 grams of fat in the slightly larger (4.5 ounce) salmon.

The shrimp scampi was the last dish I tried, and with eight pieces of shrimp at 115 calories and 5 grams of fat it was definitely filling.

I thought there was too much garlic butter, but that was remedied by letting it soak in the rice and then putting half the rice off to the side.

While it might not be a perfect effort by Long John Silver’s, it is definitely a step in the right direction. They are planning two more meals — a salmon and shrimp bowl — and I hope this is a trend that catches on with other places.

LONG JOHN SILVER’S

ADDRESS: 3095 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa

PHONE: (714) 549-3402

CUISINE: Fast food

SPECIALTY DISH: Freshside Grille menu

ALCOHOL SERVED: none

ENTRÉE PRICE RANGE: $7.95

FAMILY FRIENDLY: Yes

CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED: Visa, MasterCard

RATING: ** 1/2

JOHN REGER is the Pilot’s restaurant critic. His reviews run Thursdays.