cod Archives - Curiously Carmen

Before summer ended, I spent the afternoon with Gin exploring Main Street. Both of us had been wanting to try The Fish Counter for a long time, and couldn’t find a better time to check it off both of our lists.
The Fish Shop serves up sustainable seafood, and all products are Ocean Wise. The place reminded me of a cool, local seafood shop.

Since it was a nice and sunny day, the windows were all open and so was the patio. The sun was coming in, the air was fresh and warm – what more could you ask for?

It took us quite a while to decide on what to order as everything looked so delicious! We ended up splitting three items for lunch.

The first thing we ordered was the special that day, the Greek fish taco. This caught my eye because I am a HUGE fan of Greek food and I can’t pass down anything with tzatiki sauce. Seriously, I don’t normally tend to finish all my dipping sauces with my food but when it’s tzatiki sauce… I’ll gobble it up so fast before you know it was there!

Everything tasted really fresh but unfortunately, we both found this taco to be lacking in taste and very plain.

We were torn between the chowder and BC bouillabaisse, and ended up deciding on the latter. This soup was seriously amazing and was a seafood lover’s dream. There was an extremely generous amount of seafood – with every scoop we had, there was an abundance of fish, clams, shrimp, etc that came along with it.

We really enjoyed the soup and would order it again in a heart beat! I must warn you though, if you’re not a seafood lover, you might find this soup a bit too ‘fishy’ but we thought it was absolutely perfect.
The last thing we ordered was the crab and shrimp baguette, or pretty much a shrimp/crabcake baguette 😉 Again, all the ingredients were really fresh and the flavours went well together. The baguette was nice and soft too, while the side salad came with fresh and crunchy vegetables.

I would recommend squeezing a bit of lemon juice on top to further accentuate the flavours!

Since this place is mostly self serve, you clean up after yourself once you’re done eating.

Overall, we really enjoyed our first experience at The Fish Shop and I would recommend this place if you’re a seafood lover. All the ingredients they use are really fresh and the quality of the food is definitely there. Since the seating area is a bit limited, this would be a good place to order take out as well. The staff are also extremely nice and welcoming.

On the other side of the restaurant is their actual fish shop! We didn’t buy any seafood to bring home to cook that day, but the option is there for those who want to.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

After months of patiently waiting for the weather to get warmer in Vancouver, it has finally come. The boyfriend decided to surprise me and take me to Stevestone for a date, and I could not think of a better day to go. The skies were blue, the water was calm, the air was fresh, and the temperature was hot.

Originally, we were planning to go to Pajos, but the lineup was very long and we wanted somewhere that we could sit comfortably and enjoy the view. So after walking around, we decided on going to Sockeye City Grill because they had nice patio seats and view.
There was another restaurant right beside this one we were going to go to, but after checking our phones, we saw that it had an abysmal 28% with almost 200 user votes. I’ve never seen a rating so low save for Kiwawa in Metrotown, so I’m glad we saw that before we went to that place.
We were seated promptly on the patio. Here is a picture of our lovely view. There was a loud family next to us with a crying baby, so of course, things weren’t 100% perfect but the parents managed to keep the crying controlled for the sake of other customers.
The boyfriend decided on getting the two piece cod fish and chips ($18). Yes, the prices here are going to be a bit pricier because Steveston is a tourist area and the seafood is also fresh, local, and wild. Originally, I wasn’t going to have much because I didn’t want anything oily or greasy that day, but it was so good I ended up having more than one bite. The cod was so juicy and fresh. I’ve never had such fresh fish and chips before!

The batter was also very crispy, and the tartar sauce accentuated the juiciness of the cod even more. I felt like our cod tasted like a higher grade of fish (it’s the cheapest type of fish on the menu) because it was that good! The pieces were also very large. A lot of places have their batter really big so it looks like the fish inside is too, when it actually isn’t but this wasn’t the case. YUM!
As for me, I got their large seafood chowder. I was a bit disappointed because there wasn’t much variety of seafood in it. I only tasted a few pieces of cod inside. At least what small amount of seafood I had in here was juicy and delicious though. There was a lot of vegetables in here. I found the taste to be a bit bland, but improved a lot when I sprinkled some salt and pepper to it.
To add to the semi-disappointing chowder, I added the bread bowl for $3. However, I didn’t realize that the bread bowl meant that it would come in its own baskets. I thought it meant that the actual bowl for the soup would be bread. 🙁 Oh well, the bread was good at least. It was soft and doughy, and tasted good when dipped in the chowder.
Here is a bonus and random picture of Steveston, I just thought it looked very pretty (save for the garbage bin…oops). Overall, our visit to Sockeye City Grill was decent. I would recommend getting their fish and chips rather than the seafood chowder. The service was also nice and attentive.

Our hostess also asked us if we preferred a table with lots of sun, or shade, and then proceeded to give us the best seat available. If you want a to enjoy a nice and comfortable lunch at Steveston, I would recommend this place.