My cousin had this on her ‘Ottawa Eats’ list and I’m glad  we made the stop at Whalesbone (my family went to the tulip festival in Ottawa). This place is exactly how I imagined it to be; half seafood market and the half a takeout eatery.  The website has sample items for their brown bag lunch including sandwiches, fish & chips and chowder.

There were plenty of items on the menu. We ordered a variety and shared among four; fish n’ chips, calamari, chowdah and oyster po’boy.

The lunch came in a brown bag, hence the brown bag lunch!

We had two pieces of haddock with slices of fried potato (aka chips) underneath.

The calamari was light and unfortunately I can’t remember any significant flavour or taste.

We think the guy that put our order in misinterpreted what we wanted. There was the oyster sandwich and just the fried oysters. We wanted just the oysters but got the sandwich. Oh well. The oyster sandwich was the most unpleasant sandwich, in terms of presentation.  Sloppy and just not an eye catcher. The sandwich had ailoli, onions, a LOT of lettuce, some hot sauce and fried oysters (4 I think).

In all, all the fried items (fish, fries, oysters) tasted heavy (was it stale oil?). I know fried is fried, but there’s a difference between light deep fried and deep DEEP fried (you can taste the food being too oily). As seen in the photos, the fish and chips were dark (in terms of colour). I thought everything could have been better.

There are several seats at the counter, if you’re lucky enough to get a seat. There are also picnic benches outside at the parking lot.

On the other side, there is a seafood market that sells fish, and seafood.

Click here for the Whalesbone website.
Photos via Canon G12.