Dining out: Parrothead Island Broiler

TAYLORSVILLE — It's hard to pin down the kind of food you can get at Taylorsville's wonderful Parrothead Island Broiler, and I think that's on purpose.

Parrothead does not serve Polynesian food, though fans of that cuisine will find plenty of familiar elements on the menu. Instead, it's a creative and jazzy mix of Polynesian, Caribbean and Japanese influences bestowed upon classic dishes.

But it's not haphazard. Despite being named for the sultan of laid-backness Jimmy Buffett (his fans are called Parrotheads), there's nothing casual about the thoughtful combinations of flavors, ingredients and traditions at this place.

Take my salad, the "Spinach Sensation." Elements of a traditional spinach salad — baby spinach leaves, hard-boiled egg, bacon, red onions — were combined with pine nuts, gorgonzola cheese and mounds of shredded "tropical" roast pork for something excitingly different that retains the classic's refreshing simplicity. It's huge, too; a couple of gals probably could share one salad.

Besides, if you share you can try more things on the menu, and we didn't have anything we didn't like. We started with the Sinaloa quesadilla, with more of that sweet-tangy pork fused to two corn tortillas with mild, white Oaxaca cheese. They weren't really hand food — we had to eat ours with forks — but they were delicious, elevating to sublime with a spoonful of the accompanying fresh, salad-like papaya-mango salsa.

We also had the "Island Fries" platter, a huge, piping-hot plate of regular and sweet-potato fries topped with chewy bacon bits, Oaxaca cheese and scallions. I'd never before seen my kids scarf down sweet potatoes like that; I think I've found a new Thanksgiving side dish.

The kids ordered from the "keiki" menu, which is small but to the point, offering cheese quesadillas, grilled-cheese and tempura chicken sliced over rice with a drizzle of teriyaki sauce.

Two of our girls had the chicken, crackly-coated and tender inside with just enough sauce to perk things up, while the other had the standard but tasty grilled-cheese oozing with melted Cheddar.

My husband had one of Parrothead's signature rice/noodle bowls, so named because each one contains both rice and Asian noodles as a bed for two of seven possible toppings — shrimp, chicken, salmon, even tofu — prepared with one of three glazes.