Starfish
29 November 2004, late at night
Carvill’s Birthday passed last week, and to celebrate Mezan and I went out with her to Starfish, an oyster bar in Downtown Toronto. I had never had raw oysters before and was quite excited about the evening.
We arrived a bit past seven and were seated in a booth of sorts in the corner of the restaurant. This gave us a fairly good view of the rest of the restaurant and the bar. The inside of Starfish is quite nice, and was a welcome change from stank-ass Fred’s Not Here. The place is basically lit with candles, and has a warm feel to it.
To start we ordered a half bottle of Muscadet Sèvre et Maine (2001), which is a very light white wine. I will probably go looking for it at some point in time in the LCBO. Mezan bought a Lobster soup, but was served a mushroom soup by accident. The mushroom soup was quite good, and the waiter quite apologetic. They serve this really sweet whole-grain bread at Starfish was awesome. I ate so much of it. We also decided to share a small platter of oysters. Carvill is a fan of oysters from France, which is where the bulk of our selection came from. We also ordered a few more from Easter Canada I believe.
Raw oysters are strange to say the least. They’re served on a tray of ice, sitting on top of their shells. The shells basically feel like rocks—cold rocks. Oysters have a strange gooey texture, and the ones we ordered had a taste I really can’t describe. I can say I really didn’t enjoy them though. I had 3 or 4 different ones. Carvill likes very strong oysters, so perhaps I would have enjoyed mild ones more. I’ll have to try some next time Carvill wants oysters.
With all the oysters out of the way, we were brought our mains. We each ordered a different fish dish. I had a halibut, Carvill had a sturgeon, and Mezan had some cod. All the fish were quite good. I thought my halibut was excellent. The fish were all served on top of a bed of vegetables and sauce.
For dessert Mezan and Carvill had Crème Brules, while I had a flour-less chocolate cake. The cake was amazing. If you go to Starfish I strongly recommend you get this cake. The Crème Brule was good, though apparently the sugar at the top was too thick.
After dinner we went to Hy’s Steak House for drinks. That deserves its own post.
Starfish was really good, but quite expensive. The oysters and the wine is probably what pushed the bill quite so high. Appetizers were about 10 dollars each, as were desserts. Mains were around 30 dollars each. Oysters were about 3–4 dollars each. The bill came out to around $260 dollars after taxes and tips, which if you do that math is a lot of money for three people to eat. This is one of many reasons why my apartment is still unfurnished.