Ottawa

Does anyone else love the feeling of going to a new restaurant and being super excited about it cause you’ve been waiting days, months to eat there? That was me since planning this weekend Ottawa trip.

It was a really hard decision to choose a place that we would all be satisfied with. The plan was originally to eat at The Fish Market, but we were told that the wait would be long. Weirdly and luckily, there is a restaurant on the second floor that has the exact same menu as The Fish Market. I think I understand why there was a wait at The Fish Market… Coaster’s Seafood Grill was much smaller in size.

Nevertheless, we made our way upstairs and still had a nice seafood meal (something we don’t have often at home). Firstly, the bread was incredible! It was steaming hot when opened and mom was obsessed about the dipping oil.

Mom and I ordered house wine, red for her and white for me. I really liked the white wine, sweet and light. But unfortunately, I couldn’t find the same at my local LCBO.

When I go out with my family, we always share everything. We had a calm chowder, steamed mussels, arctic char filet and a maritime platter.

I loved the fish and especially the mango and mint salsa.

The maritime platter really surprised me. There was a wide variety of seafood on the platter, including crab, shrimp, scallops and lobster (obviously!). I was shocked by the vegetables, cause they tasted super amazing.. stir fried broccoli, mushrooms and potatoes. But the lobster was overcooked (a little tough), in my opinion.

I would definitely recommend this to others, just be prepared to not move around cause space is limited. And we had a great view of a street performer as we sat by a window and could see the street performer doing there thing on the other side of the street.

Click here to visit Coaster’s Seafood Grill’s website (you will be redirected to The Fish Market website).
Photos via iPhone 6 and Canon G12.

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.

Tiffanie's Chalkbored Kitchen

food diaries and explorations

Coaster’s Seafood Grill – Ottawa

The Whalesbone – 504A Kent – Ottawa