A Kettle of Fish

I went to this place for a friend's birthday dinner and was looking pretty forward to checking this place out for its seafood. Parking for the restaurant is pretty much along any of the side hill streets and it's free which makes it awesome.

Dirty stuff out of the way, here's the washroom for those who based restaurant quality on the kitchen... err.. I meant washroom. Plain, standard, ugly... definitely not top-tier. You walk down a staircase through a fancy stairway and then it goes downhill (literally). If you ever became disoriented, you'd think you were at Knight and Day if you ever came to in here. But I can't complain, you are able to do your business in here just fine and everything seems to work.

So this is the lounge where you can either wait or go for some drinks here. I really like the decor and the chairs are super comfortable. From what I saw, the bar is next to it and it consisted of about five bar stools and a small TV with no sound so I'd definitely skip the bar if possible.
So I had been hearing about how this place was of this great infusion between upscale dining room plus nature garden, and lo and behold, we have a tree in the middle of the whole area. The restaurant was actually quite packed but I was able to snag this picture when we were the last table left. I think it's a nice touch and it looks pretty nice. Service was a little lacking as we told them that we had two more guests to arrive so we weren't ready to order but that doesn't mean we wouldn't still appreciate some water or some follow-up. For a place like this, I shouldn't really need to expect to flag for water or extra menus when guests arrive. (Okay, once everyone had arrived, service was good).

Sea Prawn Cocktail ~ $11 - I think you get about 8 okay-sized prawns with 3 sauces (curried mayo, ginger orange ketchup and caramelized tomato rouille - my fave). It was pretty good and a good starting appetizer.
Calamari ~ $10 - you can't just not go to a seafood restaurant and not try their calamari, and for what it's worth, I liked it; very good but not the best - that I've yet to find.
Fish n Chips ~ $18 - as you can see, a lot of fries which comes with the same dipping sauces at the prawn cocktail and what looks like two pieces of fish. i don't know what kind cause it's based on the daily catch. The guy said it sucked and wasn't worth it. I didn't get to validate his opinion since that would involve swapping morsels in exchange and his dish didn't look appealing. I was pondering the fish n chips - thanks goodness I didn't get it.

Sablefish Pappardelle alla Carbonara ~ $25. 25 - it looked good and tasted great. but as you can see, it's pretty eye-popping small for a whopping $25. For what it's worth, it did come with a little bit of baby squash and zucchini.

Local Paella ~ $28.50 - the menu listed a lot of things like sablefish, coho salmon, albacore tuna, spot prawns, saltspring island mussels, qualicum baby scallop, chorizo sausage and carnaroli rice. So what you get is a small bit of everything. In the end, I guess you get like 3 bites of a seafood delicacy for $4 each plus the carnaroli rice which must mean super salty.

Albacore tuna ~$24 - I checked their menu and don't see this item anymore so I guess it's no longer in season... I really enjoyed this dish which just so happened to be mine. You get a few baby vegetables, the super salty rice and 3 pretty fair pieces of seared albacore tuna which was also topped off with some sort of chocolate glaze which actually complemented each other very well.

Cheesecake with spiced pears and almond oat crumble ~ $6.50 - very good since I like pears. As for the size, hmm... think about the opening of a standard size mug. However, I really wanted to try the rocky road but was too full. This just so happened to be someone else's dish that I mooched off of.

Overall rating ~ 7.5 - I'm willing to go back for a celebration or a suggested dinner but this wouldn't necessarily be my first choice. Given that I'm not a fan of crustaceans and mollusks, that doesn't leave me with my variety which is no fault of their restaurant's but the other items just don't seem appealing. When I picking my dish, it wasn't a matter of "oh, I don't know what to get, they all look so good!", but "oh, I don't know what to get - which one offers the biggest portions for the cheapest price?" Well... now that I think about it, bang for your buck is a reasonable way to make food decisions.



A Kettle of Fish

900 Pacific Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 2E3

Tel: 604-682-6661