The culinary renaissance in Ocean Beach is progressing nicely.

There’s Thee Bungalow for white-linen, French-kissed fare, and Kaiserhof – if you allow fiercely German Wiener schnitzel as part of the fine-dining equation. The Third Corner and The Vine, each flaunting wine-centric meals, are also in the “thumbs-up” division.

Shades Oceanfront Bistro, however, which occupies a coveted chunk of property with ringside views of the Pacific near the foot of Newport Avenue, is not. Though the large, sunny restaurant can be forgiven for its casual menu targeting the beachcomber set, its ill-conceived meals cannot be pardoned.

Never having heard a peep about the food, Shades’ prime location is essentially what lured me in on my first lunchtime visit. Entering the restaurant’s easygoing atmosphere with big picture windows facing the water, my expectations were positive – that is, until my companion and I laid eyes on the Floaters.

I’m all for clever meal descriptions that play on neighborhood themes and tempt patrons with colorful adjectives. But when a menu makes an analogy to sewage spill, and when the objects on your plate indeed resemble such, one starts fantasizing about sending the chef and restaurant owner to culinary detention school.

Chalk it up to naiveté that we ordered these unthinkable darkly fried logs of low-grade hamburger meat in the first place, because the menu describes these “floaters” thus: “not very pretty” with a “well… questionable” name. The subheading reads: “Jalapeno Cheeseburger Fries.” Stupid us for thinking we’d be getting something along the line of nachos. We completely missed the juvenile allusion. Need I say more?

Pushing the floaters aside, my I’ll-eat-anything companion selected one of several personal-sized, flat-bread pizzas called The Muir from the “Blankets” category. I could stomach only two bites, but he trudged through all but two slices.

The pizza crust was of the white-cracker ilk, topped with funky garlic butter sauce and six cheeses all wrestling with each other: Gorgonzola, Parmesan, mozzarella, Romano, Jack and provolone. The other pizza options were equally ambitious – a bacon-and-mashed-potato pie with cheddar (The Cable) and a two-cheese concoction with green salsa and chicken breast (The Abbott).

I’m always a sucker for a Reuben, but the Shades’ version is afflicted with a heinous substitution for the traditional corned beef: fatty, grilled bratwurst. And although the sandwich does contain Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing, the addition of tomatoes and raw onions destroyed the Reuben’s integrity. Further, the sesame-seed bun left me yearning for the classic flavor of rye bread.

A few days later, I returned for dinner with two friends (whom I now owe a good bottle of wine thanks to our not-so-peachy dinner experience). My intention was to unearth a redeeming appetizer or entrée with which to balance this review. To little avail, we started out with Red Pepper Soup, which tasted like spaghetti sauce spiked with sugar and liquid smoke. “No, it tastes like hot dogs,” commented one of my companions. On a brighter note, we nibbled from a starter called The Board – a piping hot French baguette served with olive-portobello tapenade (they call it “dip” here) and soft garlic butter.

A plate of mixed greens struggling to stay firm comprised a companion house salad served with generic Ranch dressing. “I’m wasting calories eating at this place,” one friend exclaimed, declining to order anything else. My other friend proceeded to Sweet Potato Fries, but not without first receiving regular fries accidentally. The former came with three dips: the mediocre Ranch, a wasabi-infused Ranch and a viscous caramel sauce that was akin to corn syrup with a chewy candy melted in. Then he, too, put the kibosh on spending another dime here.

Bravely broaching the entrée list solo, I zeroed in on Roasted Chicken that was good enough for me to feel as though I had graduated to a Cocoa’s or Denny’s with an ocean view. The half bird was quite moist and with every spec of skin wonderfully crisped. It came with a milky, uninspired lime-cilantro sauce on the side, which remained on the side after I dipped a few chunks of meat into it. Of my two side choices, the “bistro potatoes” were a flavorless mash of red-skin spuds without either butter or the Parmesan and garlic the menu had promised. A mini cob of corn was mealy and undoubtedly cooked well ahead of time.

The dinner hour afforded us less tranquility compared to my lunch visit. Loud talkers and children playing chase around their elders’ table gave us the itch to get out of dodge without bothering with dessert. Service at both visits was fast; our food arrived with suspiciously remarkable speed.

Perhaps if I moseyed off the sands after a long day in the sun, famished and dehydrated, I might be able to overlook the oddities inherent in what I think is supposed to be “cool food” at Shades. The place has been in business for a few years now, serving up breakfast, lunch and dinner, which tells me there must be something on the menu worth returning for.