Bridgets at 8 West: Fine Pan Asian Seafood Restaurant in Ambler, PA

On a chilly Sunday night in December, you're more likely to find us whipping up another batch of homemade soap than piling into the car to check out a restaurant in the 'burbs. (With our recently purchased "L Word" box set, it's hard to leave the house.) Turns out Bridgets 8 West, at the corner of Butler Pike and Main Street in a revitalizing downtown Ambler, is worth the drive and gas money.

We're Google-savvy gals and did research before we went, so we knew Bridget's is a Hawaiian-inspired steak and seafood house. Imagine our surprise when we walked into a cozy and well-appointed bar with hip thirtysomethings nibbling at their entrees and a wood-paneled dining room painted in tasteful shades of blue. No palm trees? The Don Ho music? The wait staff in coconut bras and leis?

Once we heard owner Kevin Clib call Bridget's a "feminized steakhouse," we got the vibe immediately. Named for his 11-year-old daughter Bridget, the restaurant opened over two years ago (check out Bridget's framed artwork throughout the restaurant - girl's got talent!). Clib and Chef Scott Simmers are both local guys, so they get that Philadelphia area diners are accustomed to comfortable food in comfortable locations, places with names like "Inn" and "Tavern." Chef Scott works to keep things innovative with a seasonal menu that he says champions "freshness over the expected," by infusing traditional steak house favorites with Pacific Rim and southwest flavors (random pairing, your table is now ready).

We started with the tuna and noodles [$12], medallions of ahi-grade tuna with a coating of Japanese furikake (that's dried seaweed and toasted sesame seeds to you and me) served over fettuccine with a shitake mushroom and ginger cream sauce and topped with "tobacco onions." We thought it tasted like a modern Mom's tuna casserole, and it turns out that's just what Chef Scott was going for. The beef satay [$12] with eggplant and peanut sauce over sticky rice was (say it with us) like buttah.

Salads were standard steakhouse fare, from the wedge with bleu cheese dressing to the classic Caesar. We sampled the spinach salad with cranberries, mandarin oranges, and mango poppy seed dressing [$8]. The cranberries seemed a bit out of place in an otherwise tropical celebration, but the overall effect was tasty and we couldn't shut up about the candied macadamia nuts all the way home.

We each got to try the mahi mahi with Thai curry sauce with sticky rice [$26] and the filet of beef over wasabi mashed potatoes with a shitake reduction [$33] and found them delicious. The curry was coconutalicious (finally, coconuts!) and the wasabi mash had more kick than any you'll find at any of the various satellites of a certain Starr-y constellation. We wrapped things up with a chocolate lava cake [$9], another traditional favorite that gets a lighter, more milk chocolate-y treatment here than the usual dark chocolate bomb.

So is Bridgets 8 West a steakhouse? A seafood restaurant? A pan-Asian pearl in Montgomery County? Yes, yes and yes. "We're a happy dysfunctional family," says Clib. No therapy needed, dysfunctional never tasted so good.

Bridgets 8 West, 8 West Butler Pike,
Ambler, Pennsylvania, 267-465-2000, bridgets8west.com