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.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin

Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

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