This week was our three year wedding anniversary! The morning dawned with a fresh 6 inches of snow, but despite Mother Nature's slap in the face, March 12 was a great day.
For a while I had been seeing ads for a Groupon-esque website called How About We on my facebook. It was so relentless in its presence that I finally decided to see what it was. It turns out it is a website that provides really cool date experiences for a good price, and they just happened to have a one-month free plus credit toward your first date promotion. I decided it might be fun to try it out (it was free, after all), and signed up. That is how I came to find the glory that is Fish Bar and snag us a 9-course anniversary dinner for $19.
We arrived to find a much more casual restaurant than expected with a menu that was super exciting. We sat in a booth in the back next to the kitchen. Our waitress, Sara, explained that the way it worked was that we got to pick one course from each section of the menu below for a total of 9 courses, plus do-it-yourself S'mores for dessert.
Michel: We also got a cocktail and a beer each.
Elizabeth: I started with my cocktail, The Jackhammer. Described as a margarita (on the rocks) with a kick, it was super smooth with a decidedly spicy finish. Really interesting and delicious!
Michel: I started with the Half Acre Daisy Cutter, a decent local beer but not my favorite of the Half Acre stable.
Elizabeth: Then came our first two courses: smoked whitefish to spread on toast and a spicy crab gumbo. The gumbo was absolutely delicious, but the whitefish blew me away. It was the perfect balance of smokey and salty.
Michel: I agree with both. The whitefish had lemon juice and capers in it, and it was delightful. The gumbo was Gulf Coast quality.
Elizabeth: Third course was our vegetable dish: a beautiful cobb salad. Best avocados I've had in a while. Chicago does not get quality avocados year round like Houston does. It also had a really tasty, tangy dressing.
Michel: Seeing as this was a salad, it was by far the weakest course. However, it was still good. Really great bacon.
Elizabeth: Fourth course was raw oysters! Michel discovered the deliciousness that is oysters on our mini-moon to New Orleans, but we haven't really had them since. As you can see, we were so excited that we ate them before pictures could be taken. The large ones were from Martha's Vineyard and the small ones were from British Columbia.
Michel: Had I not been thwarted, all of the food would have been eaten before pictures could be taken. These were really great oysters.
Elizabeth: 5th course was spicy shrimp cocktail and 6th was a heavenly, buttery lobster roll. The shrimp cocktail was amazingly fresh with delicious chips and the perfect amount of heat.
Michel: The bun for the lobster roll was the most perfectly buttered thing I have ever had. The lobster portion was also incredible. The shrimp cocktail was probably the best I've ever had.
Elizabeth: I think for Michel, the lobster roll was a food experience.
Elizabeth: For my beer, I ended up choosing a Belgian-style wheat beer. I am not a beer person, but I believe I have found the only beer that I've ever liked enough to drink most of. It was very nice, almost champagney.
Michel: For my cocktail, I had the Bourbon on Belmont. As the name would suggest, it is a bourbon based cocktail that also had citrus and mint, so I guess it was like a bourbon mojito. It was really good.
Elizabeth: 7th course was fried calamari, and 8th was salmon a la plancha with lentils and broccolini. The fried calamari paired nicely with the tangy, pickled banana peppers, and the salmon was flavorful, if a bit dry.
Michel: This is probably the best calamari I've ever had.
Elizabeth: And finally, 9th course was fried scallop tacos! Normally, I don't care for scallops (they're one of the few foods with which I have a texture issue), but these tacos were pretty tasty.
Michel: Scallops are among my favorite foods. Frying them and putting them on a taco only enhances their glory.
Happy and very full!
Elizabeth: And then it was time for the build-your-own-S'mores portion of the evening. They gave us our own mini-campfire, brought marshmallows and skewers, and delivered the graham crackers with the chocolate already spread on for us. It was awesome!
Michel: It was a tasty way to finish an exquisite and profoundly filling meal.
Elizabeth: It really was a wonderful anniversary experience. We're looking forward to our next trip to Fish Bar, maybe for their new Sunday brunch.
Michel: Despite all that seafood, no mercury poisoning!
