Looking over my posts so far, I see that I have talked quite a bit about fish. And today, I will continue. One of the stops on my recent culinary adventure in Kingston was a new restaurant called Dianne's Fish Bar.
I have been dining in Kingston for many, many years. C has lived there since 1991, and almost any decent restaurant that has existed in Kingston during the last 22 years I have tried during my visits. For a comparatively small city, there is a solid collection of places offering interesting and sometimes innovative food. Before any trip to Kingston, C and I carefully plan our restaurant visits, studying menus, balancing old favourites with new options. Until now, though, there has never been a dedicated fish restaurant (other than The Red Lobster, which doesn't count). So, naturally, I was very excited when C mentioned this new place.
Located downtown, very near the lake, it is in one of those old brick buildings that make up so much of downtown Kingston. The interior has the exposed brick, colourfully painted pipes at the ceiling giving it a bit of a factory feel, complimented by some subtle blue neon lighting and blue/grey metallic details, and stemware and dishes with blue and green tints. Overall, a good atmosphere, though I found the service rather slow, particularly considering it wasn't a full house. C assures me that it is usually better than we experienced.
There were a number of things that interested me on the menu, so I ordered more than I should have. First, ceviche.
They have three different kinds, and for the same price as a full order of any one of them, you could order a small sample of all three. At the top is Vallarta, a market white fish with red onion, avocado, lemon, clamato juice, and a few other ingredients. To me, serviceable, but my least favourite of the three. I could tell it was well done, but it just wasn't as interesting as the other two. At the left, we have albacore tuna poke - a highlight because of the salty soy and sesame base, the glorious texture of the tuna, cut by the freshness of lime juice and ginger. The bottom right is bay scallops, which as ceviche have a lovely texture, and aren't as sweet as they are when cooked, with grapefruit, jalapeno, cilantro, mint and cucumber. I loved the heat of the jalapeno against the fresh ingredients and the silky smooth, cool scallop. The scallop was a little more traditional; the tuna a little more interesting. I have a hard time saying which I liked better.
Being gluttonous whenever in Kingston, I also ordered fish tacos.
The left is a traditional fish taco: battered pacific cod, pickled cabbage, radish, crema. The fish was cooked beautifully, but I would have liked a little more bite in the pickled cabbage. The taco on the right is shrimp pibil, with pasilla chile, pineapple, and pico de gallo. The shrimp was meaty and flavourful, and I appreciated the spiciness of the chile. Where the tacos failed was with the tortillas. Billed as handmade Mexican style corn tortillas, the texture wasn't very pleasant, and they were dry and fell apart easily, making eating them a challenge. To complete the gluttony, I ordered an oyster po'boy, with Mexican street corn as the side.
I have trouble judging this one because I was quite full. These were large oysters, and the batter to oyster ratio was good. The oysters were not overcooked. When deep frying something as delicate as an oyster it takes some skill not to leave it as a hard little bit of rubber on the inside. They succeeded admirably in this. The sandwich was good. The corn was wonderful, one of my favourite bites all weekend. Grilled, rubbed with butter, tossed with a cumin-based spice blend, the corn was sweet with a little crunch, and the char and spices added great flavour complexity.
C reported that the chowder was good. Warning, it is a thin broth chowder, not a thick and creamy chowder.
And she followed that up with a lobster roll with a side of kimchi fried rice, which she also found to be good, She did, however, feel that I "won" lunch because the the beautifully fried oysters and the glorious ceviche. Victory was mine!
I would definitely return to this restaurant. What I tried was good enough to make me want to try more.
For updates, follow me on twitter: @culinarykira
No comments:
Post a Comment