Seafood Restaurants in Vancouver

[sjh422]

Can anyone recommend seafood restaurants in the vicinity of Canada Place. Particularly interested in finding one that serves halibut and is not overly expensive.

[Urban trekker]

Here's one that is in the Granville Entertainment District - short walk - 8 - 10 blocks from Canada Place.

 

I tried the fish and chips and enjoyed them but I am the first to admit that I am no foodie.

 

http://www.glowbalgroup.com/fish-shack/

 

Some of the other locals will be along with their favorites.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[martincath]

Halibut is almost as common as Salmon in Vancouver - anywhere with fish on the menu will be almost certain to have it. Really depends what you want the restaurant to *do* with the halibut in terms of best recommendations for you!

 

I'm eating dinner in Fish Shack tomorrow for the first time and plan to try the fish & chips made with halibut, so I'll let you know how that goes - and there's a couple of threads already discussing Fish & Chips, search for those if that's your preferred style.

 

If you want it in some kind of interesting sauce instead of battered or grilled you might want to consider Hawksworth, Bishop's or Blue Water. If you want it simply grilled, any of the fancy places or any pubs that state they make their own beer batter in-house will be able to grill a plain fillet on request but Fish House and Provence specifically offer it that way on their regular menu.

 

Whoops - edited to say that Bishop's & Blue Water are a wee bit away from Canada Place - Hawksworth is close though, and several of the pubs nearby offer halibut in fish & chip form (Steamworks, Rogue)

[cs4225]

You may want to check out Joe Forte Seafood & Chop on 777 Thurlow Street at Robson. About a 15 min walk from Canada Place. But it's expensive. Got to try their halibut cheeks. So good:o

[Putterdude]

Unfortunately seafood, halibut and inexpensive are a bit hard to use in the same sentence....last fall the buyers were paying paying the fishermen something in the range of $8 a pound for halibut and that is on the hoof so to speak....so dollar for dollar and pound for pound halibut is more expensive than a good quality steak in a restaurant.

Many of the seafood restaurants will have it on their "fresh sheet" which of course varies from day to day. Joe Fortes as noted in a previous post is always a good choice. Coast, the Boathouse and the Lift all have halibut on their regular dinner menus but none are overly close to Canada Place and plan to spend $30+ for each entrée.

 

 

http://www.glowbalgroup.com/coast/#home_section

 

http://boathouserestaurants.ca/

 

http://liftbarandgrill.com/

[martincath]

Thanks to UT for the reminder that I didn't post anything after my visit to Fish Shack! Here's the low-down:

 

Look is definitely Casual Fish Resto - a very tall (two full floors in height) open space, mezzanine at the rear with more seating, lots of wood used on the walls, some painted packing pallets meant to look casually stacked, a palm tree(?) that seems a little out of the otherwise more Canadian Maritimes vibe.

 

Seating is too close together - in it's previous life as Sanafir the tables were in two rows, sort of zig-zagging down the length of the space. Weirdly enough they haven't added seats, but have slid all the tables into one line along the wall. Very narrow gaps between the tables (someone removing a coat next to you has a good chance of elbowing you in the face), and now a huge open corridor between the row of tables and the bar. Very poor planning IMO.

 

I noticed the music, but found it less of a distraction from our conversation than the table next to us (not their fault, we were just so close we couldn't help but overhear how their honeymoon was going...).

 

Menu is printed on a huge sheet of newsprint-type paper, and makes a lot of use of a little stamp to indicate which fish is available that day. Some specials that are pretty good value are listed on the back - one of my tablemates took advantage of the $19.99 lobster, supposed to be a 1lb-er but looked like it was a little larger. Good selection of fish - although no guarantees how many will actually be available, so it looks better than it is.

 

Staff were uniformly friendly, definitely up for a bit of a chat in general as well as making recommendations on the food - better staffed than many Vancouver restos, where the servers are run off their feet at peak times with no time to get beyond the basics of welcome/specials/take your order. No mistakes with any of our orders, all of which had something other than the default option added, so server competence also seems good.

 

Food (most important!) was OK to very good, but the more important parts of the meal were where the most care was lavished, A Good Thing.

 

Between us we had the halibut & haddock, both as Fish & Chips, and a lobster special (steamed). Both pieces of both kinds of fish were battered well - thick enough to stick, thin enough to be crispy when the fish was just cooked - and cooked to perfection. Considering the relative size differences between our 4 fillets the staff don't just dump all the fish for one table into the oil at the same time.

 

Chips were very good - crispy outside, fluffy inside - and when I asked for a salad instead (diabetes - the batter alone is probably more carbs than I should eat at one meal and I'd rather skip the chips) there was no trouble at all and I got a decent mix of sliced veggies & lettuce leaves.

 

Other sides - coleslaws in a couple of different flavours (asian sesame and kimchi) were limp and lacking in flavour, the 'cajun' drawn butter for the lobster had a desultory looking sprinkle of paprika in it and no other discernable flavour.

 

Drinks - passable wine list, though not in any way focused toward seafood-friendly wines, and a very disappointing beer list (Vancouver alone offers many craft breweries, most of whom make at least a couple of good beers to accompany salty/crunchy seafood dishes; closest thing to 'real beer' on offer was Rickards - yet for some reason they chose to stock the Dark rather than the White, which is actually quite a good beer to accompany their menu). Cocktails are very much of the 'all inclusive Caribbean beach resort' style - i.e. there isn't actually a single true cocktail on the list, just slings and fruity mixed drinks. If you like big-brewery North American lagers and drinks with umbrellas, you'll definitely find the drink selection to your taste though!

 

Sidenote - there were oysters, and they're a Buck A Shuck in happy hour early evenings (different boards said different times in the bar, so may be until 5:30 or 6pm), but as I've yet to find an oyster that I enjoy rather than tolerate I rarely eat them so can't comment on how good they are here. They did look fresh and covered many potential varieties (I think they had at least 6 available including kusshi, kumamoto, & malpeque).

 

Overall - I'd go back, happily order any of the fish & chips or steamed crustaceans again, but stick to the plain coleslaw and butter. Rational reviewers on yelp, open table etc. seem to have had a similar experience - simple things are done well, fancy stuff not so much. I'll also keep checking to see if they fix some of the really easy things like table arrangement and beer selection - if they do, I'll definitely be a more regular customer.

[sjh422]

Thanks for the very good info on the Fish Shack. We are going to give it a try!!

[Urban trekker]

Please come back and give us a review - as a fairly new operation we locals don`t have a lot of info on it.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis