If you know me, you would know that I'm a huge Shellfish fan, specifically Raw Oysters! It made me extremely happy to see Fanny Bay Oysters have opened up a Restaurant in Downtown! The Bar is beautifully decorated, and have photos of their Oyster Farm all over their walls. I find them to be very interesting! There's something about ordering Oysters from a Restaurant that started off with have many years of Oyster Farming under its belt, it's like ordering wine straight from a winery!
Our server, Emilia, gave us many suggestions, such as this - Oyster Shooters! I'm not typically a shot type of girl, but these were delicious! There are 2 different ways you can take a shot: Slurp the Oyster, lick the rim, shoot it, then bite on the lime OR lick the rim, squish lime into the shot, do the shot, then slurp the oyster. The shot is basically a mini-Caesar and it was an absolute delight!
Of course, we ordered a dozen Oysters. We had a Variety of them: Kumamoto, Kusshi, Raspberry Point, Fanny Bay & Shigoku, from the Pacific, to the East Coast - they all tasted amazing and went well with the Apple Cider Mignonette
We were curious about trying the Geoduck on their menu and to our excitement, Emilia took us over to the tank and showed us a live geoduck. I got to say, it was not what I expected! It looked like an elephant trunk with nostrils at the end of it and was rough to the touch, it made me second guess my decision to order the Geoduck Sashimi. We decided to order it anyway, since there wasn't many restaurants that served geoduck. The dish was beautifully plated, chopped up and served in its shell, in watermelon radish, complemented with pickled ginger & horseradish. To our surprise, the texture of the sashimi, when it came out to our table, was great! It wasn't at all rough, and tasted like raw scallops to me. If you have never tried geoduck before, I highly implore you to try it!
We ended our dinner with splitting a Bouillabaisse, another dish that was suggested by Emilia. I'm glad we listened to her since this dish was absolutely amazing! Mussels, Clams, Prawns, Ling Cod, and Scallops bathe in a fragrant white wine saffron butter broth. The broth was slurped up, and the dish disappeared quickly! I highly recommend ordering this when you visit Fanny Bay Oyster Bar!
Words & Photos: Jenn Chan