Fish Tank

The wintry season has finally ended, and so what better time is there to put my life on hold for half a day, slap on some sun-block, and head on down to the beach? 

Just next door to Cafe Florentine, and a hop, skip and jump from Brighton Beach, is Fish Tank. I had been hankering to try this ever since I chanced upon it a year back, and finally made plans to do so. Look at that display of fresh seafood. It'll take a joyless person to walk past this store without gawking like I did. 

We took full advantage of the balmy weather and found an unoccupied table in the shade out on the sidewalks. 

The two of us split the Fisherman's Delight ($24.90), which came with 2 catch of the day, 2 calamari rings, 2 potato cakes, 2 scallops, and 2 servings of chips. 

The Catch of the day was Blue Grenadier. I had the fried option, and S had the grilled. (I was coming down with the flu and had a sore throat, but I totally forgot about that when it was my turn to order...) We compared notes, and the fried version was indisputably better. Both were fresh, but the grilled one had lacklustre texture. 

The fries were fresh and crispy, but were unsalted. You could grind your own salt over the fries, but the best fries are the ones salted right out of the fryer, when the heat makes the salt stick to the fries. Their 'calamari' was a calamari ring found in the frozen section in supermarkets. which was a little disappointing. The potato cake was decent, but my sore throat prohibited me from taking more than a nibble. 

we ordered an extra Grilled Flake Fillet ($7.50) and Spicy Potato Wedges ($6). The flake had the same problem as the Grilled Blue Grenadier, and I should have gotten it fried. 

I was looking really forward to the potato wedges, but S wanted chicken salt instead of spicy. The texture of the wedges was perfect, but needed more salt. Sigh. Their sour cream gave me pause: we thought it tasted like Philadelphia cream cheese, and only reading the menu convinced me it was in fact sour cream. Either way, it goes well with the wedges. 

To the contrary of the online reviews, I think it has good service. Maybe it's because the restaurant wasn't filled when we came? The waitress was friendly, efficient, and the wait for our food was pretty short.