We were looking for a relatively low-key dinner this Friday. We decided to eat here previously and enjoyed ourselves (it turns out we hadn’t eaten here since 2022 so it had been a lot longer than we had remembered). We made reservations for seating at the bar since that’s where we get to see all the action in the kitchen.
As we were greeted in a very friendly familiar manner by the host, he thought he remembered me, but given that we hadn’t been here in so long, he probably mistook me for someone else which occasionally happens (all look same, lol).
We started with a couple glasses of wine since they were featuring wines from Friuli in the menu. The menu had changed quite a bit since we had last been here although the format is the same. Andrea’s favorite Wagon Wheel Cheese ‘Chip & Dip’ was no longer on the menu, but we did order the smoked fish dip which was topped with everything seeds (i.e. like on an everything bagel) and half a dozen oysters to start.
The fish dip arrived first. We thought this was quite tasty – the chips were very good, thin and crisp and not overly oily. The dip was nice and salty and I really liked the additional flavors from the everything seeds. We (and mostly me) did end up finishing all of this.
Next up was the oysters. Since we were seated at the bar, we could see them shucking the oysters and we were actually concerned since we did see some oysters being huge which is not something we really like, but fortunately, the oysters they served us were much more moderately sized. When we had ordered we asked them which oysters they were serving and they had told us there was a mix of 3 – Hog Island sweetwater, Hog Island highwater, and shigoku from Washington. As we ate the oysters, we realized that they gave us 3 sweetwater or highwater and 3 shigoku. At least they were all fresh.
Since we were at The Anchovy Bar, I had to order an anchovy dish. The previous times we had been here it wasn’t anchovy season so they only had canned, so it was nice to see several different dishes. Because Andrea doesn’t like anchovies, I only ordered one anchovy dish, in this case the local lime pickled anchovies. This was served on a blue corn tostada, fava guac, and a charred serrano crema. Definitely enjoyed the fresh anchovy, although I would have happily just eaten them plain.
We also ordered the bay shrimp spring rolls since we love spring rolls. This was a different presentation than we normally get at a Vietnamese restaurant. The shrimp roll was cut into slices and stacked and topped with the shrimp in a spicy peanut sauce. It did have a nice spicy kick to it that we enjoyed.
Last came the halibut. This was served raw with turmeric and jalapeño sauce and slices of nectarine. This was a lighter dish which was fortunate since we we really were getting full already (we had been debating ordering one of the mains too, but were definitely too full at this point), but we did order dessert.
We decided to go for the sundae which had a tamarind caramel (Andrea loves tamarind) topped with an anchovy-coconut-cashew crumble (hey, when at the anchovy bar…). With the first bite, the anchovy flavor was prominent, not because there was much of it (there wasn’t), but the flavor contrasted so much with the vanilla ice cream. I can’t say that I necessarily enjoyed that first bite. But as I kept eating it, I do have to say it grew a bit more on me that I did get the salty/savory thing, but I can’t say it won me over. It was certainly novel and worth trying, but I don’t think we’d ever order that again if presented the opportunity.
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