Fast forward a couple of months: Walking into Ironside is still like arriving at a party in full swing. The dining room and multiple bar areas in this expansive — and expensive — remodeled ironworks shop crackle with electricity. Loud music is punctuated by the sounds of people laughing and glasses clinking. Massive front doors flipped open to India Street allow the cars and crowds whizzing by to pump up the urban energy even more.

Ironside Fish & Oyster is such a fun place to be.

Too bad it’s just not a fun place to eat.

Over the course of three visits, I tasted 28 dishes, repeating a few to make sure I wasn’t missing something the first time.

No, it wasn’t me.

To be sure, there are things worth recommending at Ironside.

The raw oysters are as fresh and briny as anywhere in San Diego, served with a balanced acidic-sweet mignonette. Chef Jason McLeod (who earned his Michelin stars at Chicago’s upscale seafood restaurant RIA), makes good on his somewhat presumptuous goal to “reintroduce … a rich oyster culture” to San Diego.

The Ironside slaw is perfectly dressed and gets an unexpected toothy goodness from crunchy hazelnuts. Santa Barbara spot prawns grilled a la plancha and swathed in anchovy butter are as succulent as any Maine lobster. Whole fish, roasted or grilled, is a safe bet, and reasonably priced around $24.

Service is friendly and attentive. The wine list is well-suited to the cuisine (lots of bubbles to go with those oysters) and the wine-by-glass selection isn’t an afterthought (be adventurous and try the chilled Stolpman Central Coast carbonic sangiovese). Naturally for a restaurant by CH Project partners Arsalun Tafazoli and Nathan Stanton, the short, West Coast-centric beer list is carefully chosen, reflecting different beer styles well. The cocktail program — with 50-some concoctions — is deliciously creative.

Bars and mixology are clearly CH Project’s comfort zone.

Before it even broke ground, Ironside was billed as the duo of Tafazoli and Stanton’s “most ambitious, culinary-focused concept to date.” They hired accomplished people with wide-ranging experience. Which makes Ironside’s culinary shortcomings all the more inexplicable.

Food temperatures are sometimes off, textures can be off-putting, ingredients billed on the menu don’t show up on the plate. Most pervasive is a bland undercurrent running through so many of the preparations. Underseasoning is one thing, but how do you strip ingredients of their essential flavors?

I tried the signature lobster roll twice after a persnickety friend refused to believe me when I described it as dull. “You’re right,” she admitted after taking a few bites. “But the bread is good.”

The Fish & Chips, another house specialty, look impressively big and crispy yet turned out soggy and unpleasantly over-battered, like a whitefish corn dog. Roasted escolar was well-cooked and well-seasoned one night but came out of the kitchen at room temperature, as did the veggies on the plate. Somewhere the timing was off.

Both tries of the octopus a la plancha were uneven. The first time, the octopus was tasty and had a nice char but the chorizo sauce lacked heat or smokey flavor. The second, the chorizo had spicy pop but the octopus had barely seen any time on the plancha — we were weirded out by it having zero char and an almost spongy mouthfeel.

Interior of Ironside. Courtesy photo

The crab cake had no perceptible crab taste and the opposite of lumps of meat; the consistency was similar to tuna salad.

It seems like overkill at this point to mention The Great Pink Grouper Debacle. But as one dining companion pointed out, if a fish house can’t pull off a simple grilled fish, well, then what?

The overcooked grouper was cut as thick as a brick and about as easy to cut into. “I need a steak knife,” my fellow diner said, laughing at the futility of her fork and butter knife attempts.