The Fish Man

Now here is a restaurant that I should've visited when it first opened.  The Fish Man has been serving up live seafood in the former location of Maji on Alexandra for around 3 years and this is the first time I've tried it.  I guess it didn't hurt that Mijune was paying (thank you Mijune!).  Other than a small section at the end featuring BBQ skewers, the entire menu is completely focused on seafood.  Hey, I'm not complaining as I generally adhere to a see-food diet.  LOL...

To get things started, we had the lightly-poached Geoduck with scallion ginger oil and sweetened soy.  As mentioned, the seafood here is fresh and high-quality.  This was exemplified with the geoduck as it was sweet and texturally super tender with a light chew.  It was cooked just a touch to allow the natural flavours to shine as well as optimizing its texture.  Loved the subtle brightness of the oil and the restraint of the soy.

Oh man, I absolutely love Razor Clams and I was going to savour every bite.  These were simply steamed with a plethora of minced garlic and a touch of scallion oil with soy.  Underneath, there was some vermicelli to soak up all of the juices.  With shellfish, it is imperative that the cook on them is perfect because too much and it is rubbery and too little and it is raw.  They nailed it with the clams as they were buttery with an appealing background snap.  They were so sweet and were beautifully accented by the garlic.  I could've eaten a pound of these.

It just kept coming with the outstanding Wok Fried Salt Spring Mussels.  The thoughtfulness, when it comes to their ingredients, was illustrated with this dish.  Rather than using smaller PEI mussels, they chose the larger plump variety and it was all the difference.  There was so much juicy meat that was delicate and deliciously briny.  Again, they were cooked just enough and the seasoning was on point.  Good amount of spice without being overwhelming.

The Sour Cabbage Rock Cod Hot Pot was the showstopper of our meal.  This picture doesn't do it justice in terms of portion size.  It was absolutely massive and could easily feed 4 people, if not more.  Even though there was sour cabbage, mung bean noodles and tofu underneath, there was still a massive amount of flaky rock cod.  Hence, the broth was so sweet and had the freshness of the sea.  It was balanced off by the tang of the sour cabbage as well as spiciness.  We actually finished everything including the broth.  So tasty!

Even though the place is all about the seafood, we decided to get some veggies in the form of Stir-Fried Taiwanese Cauliflower.  This was super simple with basic wok-fry, yet it was also very good.  With high BTUs, the veggies were cooked-all-the-way-through while still having a crunch.  There was no moisture on the bottom of the plate and there was very little grease as well.

Our last dish was something I was expecting to be chewy.  You see, Silkie Chicken (black chicken) is usually great for soups, but as for meat, it can be typically tough.  However, the Silkie Chicken and Fresh Sea Cucumber was actually quite good.  The chicken was tender with plenty chicken flavour while the sea cucumber was soft.  Actually, everything was really good and the ingredients were high-quality.  I wished that I had visited earlier.  Well, no matter, I'll be back soon enough.

The Good:
- High quality and fresh seafood
- Perfectly prepared seafood
- That fish soup!

The Bad:
- Well, you will have to pay for live seafood (but to me at least, it isn't expensive for what you get)
- Yes, parking is an issue