Everything but Fish at The Fish Shack

Continuing our happy hour tour, myself and and few friends went Glowbal Group's Fish Shack on Thursday. Since the happy hour half-price offer is limited to the Appetizer menu, it is actually quite limited and we ended up ordering many non-fish items -- not even their fish and chips (which I'd tried over a year ago).

Popcorn Shrimp ($10.50) cocktail sauce

• Nothing too special here. Use a fork to put the cocktail sauce on as dipping the shrimp in the sauce seemed to just push the sauce around everywhere but onto the popcorn shrimp.

Fish Bites ($8.50) chipotle tartar sauce

• This time around the fish bites weren't as likely to flake as the last time, but they were also firmer and drier.
• Nothing spicy-hot from the chipotle from the tartar sauce.

Fried Oysters ($9.50) chipotle tartar sauce

• Fried oysters is fried oysters. Nothing too special here. However, if you are unlucky, the odd oyster here might still have some of its algae feed (no, it's not "oyster poop") still in it. Typically this stuff gets washed out, but sometimes it can get missed. Then you get a yucky algae / sea water taste. This, however, is a fluke occurrence and generally a risk anywhere you get fried oysters.

Prawn Cocktail ($10.95) house-made cocktail sauce

• Typically a prawn cocktail might be a bunch of prawns and cocktail sauce. Here it sits on coleslaw. Presentation is definitely more interesting, and you get some slaw to go with your otherwise boring prawns. At $10.95, the price looked steep, though. Get it during happy hour.

Tuna Confit ($8.95) olives, roasted red peppers, herbs, toasted baguette

• This was not bad.
• It looked oily but didn't taste oily. It tasted like a lot of tuna mixed with a bit of tapenade, but mostly it tasted like tuna. Definitely use the lemon.
• Be generous when heaping the tuna onto the baguette slices or you'll run out of baguette first.

Caesar Salad ($7.50) signature dressing, sour dough croutons, parmesan cheese

• Strangely, this came without croutons. Kitchen error, probably. That, or they were out of bread for croutons.

Manhattan Clam Chowder ($7.95) tomato based

• I could locate a few flecks of chewy clam. The rest tasted basically like vegetable soup, similar to Campbell's Vegetable Soup, but less sweet and more tomato-ey. Rather disappointing for the price.

Brussels Sprouts ($6.50; side dish) chilli flakes, parmesan

• I thought this was the most interesting item of the entire meal.
• This looked like burnt brussels sprouts, the sort you can get at Minami. However, they use smaller sprouts, and there wasn't the pervasive bitterness from either the sprouts or the burning/searing on the outside.
• Looked soggy, but the taste overall was quite good. Comes with a wedge of lemon, but try it without the lemon first.
• A fairly good amount for the price.