Oysterlicious! V-day date night at Starfish Oyster Bed & Grill

Oysterlicious @ Starfish

Winterlicious booking. done

Valentine’s date blocked off in calendar. done

Kids to be watched by grandma. done

All systems go for our dinner at Starfish!

Snowstorm expecting 25cm on the day itself. Aarrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhh.
But Hubby braved the weather and still took me for our dinner date downtown. Smile. Awwww

We arrived early for our dinner at Starfish. It was a good 5-10 minute walk from the King subway station. The place only had a few customers—either we were too early or most folks did not venture out on this snowy day.

I was pretty-pumped about checking out this joint, being Zagat-rated: “Very Good to Excellent.” Also, their oyster-shucker has won a few Guinness World Records for most oysters shucked in a minute along with other oyster-shucking awards. Cool!

I started with a Caesar. After all, we were in a place known for mollusks. Where else can you get a really good Caesar? It was pricey at $12 a glass, but it was GREAT! And with an actual clam on top! It was peppery and spicy with a little bit of a tang. Just perfect for the dinner I was about to enjoy.

Bloody Caesar @ Starfish

I ordered the Shucker Paddy Oysterlicious, a 3-course Oysters-Only Dinner. On the bed of salt, I had 6 Little Neck Clams from PEI, 12 Malpeque Oysters (also PEI), 8 Fanny Bay Oysters from BC, and 3 Kumamoto oysters (from WA). Now, I’m no connoisseur of oysters to be able to tell which was a better variety. They were all good. But they were not quite as great as the oysters we used to enjoy in Manila, which had some sweetness to it. I enjoyed my freshly-shucked (from the bar) oysters with some grated horseradish and cocktail sauce. I tried it with the onion and vinegar sauce, which is how I usually have my oysters, but it wasn’t doing it for me. I managed to consume the entire jar of cocktail sauce on the table!



Vinegar and Cocktail sauce waiting for the oysters freshly shucked from the bar

Hubby also got some Malpeque Oysters and had Wild Striped Bass for his main. He gave me a portion to try. The Bass was wonderfully-cooked. The skin was crunchy and the Moroccan-spiced carrots and chickpeas brought out the flavour of the fish. It was beautifully presented on a bed of parsnip puree. The serving was quite small, though, so in that sense, I would say that this set for Winterlicious was not good value.

I shared the dessert with Hubby (my dessert was supposed to be the Kumamoto oysters!). The Sticky Toffee pudding was absolutely divine, served warm and moist. The toffee glaze was not so overpowering. It was the perfect dessert to replace the taste that the horseradish and cocktail sauce left lingering in my taste buds.

Sticky Toffee Pudding @ Starfish

I finished all the oysters and clams in the bed with little help from Hubby. I did not think I would survive dinner on just oysters, but it was surprisingly satisfying! It actually kept me full. What was better was that there were no bathroom incidents as a result of all the oysters I ate. I did get my recommended daily allowance of zinc—many times over. It was truly Oysterlicious! Cheers!