The Fishery: Eating Well, Learning Something, and Tasting 10 Fishes

mmm-yoso is the blog. It's based in San Diego. Of course, Kirk and Cathy post about San Diego often, but even ed (from Yuma) eats sometimes in America's Favorite City.

Coming over to San Diego from the desert, Tina and I often have a deep desire for seafood.  This holiday break, we decided to go to one of my favorite seafood houses in town, The Fishery:
That picture of the restaurant's exterior shows only two things very clearly.  1. The restaurant is nearly hidden on Cass St. in Pacific Beach; and 2. I'm not an especially good photographer.

My lack of talent and training in photography was even more evident as Tina and I were enjoying first courses at the restaurant.  My crab Louie (half-size, $13) was a pretty good crab salad.  Although lacking any large chunks of claw meat, the crab was exceptionally fresh and had a nice Dungeness flavor. I also appreciated the mix of lettuces, romaine and frisee predominating.  The Louie dressing was nicely balanced and complemented both lettuces and crustacean.  My picture of that pleasant salad is, unfortunately, not very pleasant at all:
Even worse was my picture of Tina's  appetizer of black mussels with linguica sausage($10):

Trust me, there really is a black mussel appetizer hiding in this photograph of what appears to be a coal mine shaft at midnight with the lights off.

At the time, this presented me a dilemma because I really wanted to post about this marvelous dish we were eating.  The musssels themselves were absolutely superb.  Each little critter was perfectly fresh, totally tender, and wonderfully flavored. While the sauce presented hints of fennel, the predominant tastes were mussel broth and linguica sausage.  The combination was irresistible.  As tasty as the shellfish themselves were, the addition of the sausage brought the whole dish, bivalves and broth both, completely over the top.
 
As we were eating this wonderful food, Tina had to listen to me bewailing my inability to take a good picture.

"It's not that dark in here," she said.  She was right.  Although not bright like Denny's, The Fishery has plenty of lighting, and one sees the food clearly.  The wooden walls, beams, and tabletops were not surfaces that sucked up light, and the restaurant overall does not seem dim, dark, or dank.

"Well it's too dark for good photos," I insisted.

"What setting are you using?"  She asked.  At this point I should add that Tina has actually taken courses in photography and has been known to get up before dawn to get just the right light for a photo.

"Automatic, just like all my pics."  She gave me one of those  "men are so clueless" looks.

"It should be easy to find a better setting," she said. So as we ate away at those marvelous mussels, dipped bread into their broth, and scarfed down full soupspoons of the that heavenly liquid, I kept trying various settings.

Finally, I was finally able to locate a basic setting that allows me to actually take adequate pictures in restricted light. By then, however, the salad and the mussels were long gone, and we had already started on our main courses.

This is linguine and white clam sauce ($19):

Like this photo, the dish was adequate, but nothing spectacular.  The clams were very fresh, the linguine was not overcooked, and the very light sauce did not interfere with any of the flavors.  Nonetheless, I would've preferred something more creamy and/or more assertive.

Tina's order of fish (cod) and chips ($10) was, on the other hand, as good a fish and chips as I've ever had:
The three filets of cod, in particular, couldn't have been done better (yes, at one time, there were 3 pieces).  The cracker crumb crust crunched with each bite, but the fish flesh inside was moist and tender.  Better deep frying is simply not possible.  And only truly fresh cod can retain that high level of moist fresh flavor after frying.

The thinly cut french fries were very good, if not extraordinary; the cabbagey coleslaw (no mayo) was fresh and mildly flavored.  If the tartar sauce was anything special, that fact escaped my attention.

Overall, we had been pleased with the meal.  Everything had been fresh, a few things had been superb, and the bottle of Four Graces  Pinot Gris from Oregon's Dundee Hills ($34) was an outstanding match for the food.  In fact, I was generally impressed by the reasonably priced and well-chosen selection of wines on the wine list.

So we decided a second visit was necessary.  That way, we thought, we could try some different entrées and eat more of those black mussels while I could get a picture of the dish.

As Burns wrote, the best laid plans of mice and ed and Tina oft go astray.  When we arrived at the fishery on December 22, we were each given an additional menu for that evening -- A Feast of the Seven Fishes ($35 per, wine pairings not included).

Sometimes you just got a go with the flow and give up preconceived plans.  And the four courses (plus a dessert) seemed intriguing and we could accompany each course with a suggested wine pairing (available by the glass or half glass).

Before our first course arrived, we received a few pieces of crunchy sourdough and brown bread accompanied by a ramekin of whipped butter:
 
The first course was called a seafood cocktail, but it looked nothing like my vision of seafood cocktails:
The poached shrimp sat atop a seaweed salad and was sauced with some sort of standard mayo/ketchup combination.  Somewhere there was a hint of jalapeno that added a nice picante note to the finish:
As nice as its presentation and garnishes were, the shrimp itself was nothing special.

The next part of the first course was a chunk of grilled octopus tentacle sitting on a remoulade:
The mollusk itself was my favorite part in the combination. The chef had managed to transform any chewiness in the raw material into a pleasurably dense texture. The char from the grill added a nice smoky touch.

Tina and I agreed that the scallop was the center of the first course in more ways than just appearance:
While the light cream sauce didn't bring much to the fried piece of shellfish, the breading and frying were perfect:
In addition to the complexity of textures, the scallop here had a good fresh clean flavor. The Gruner Veltliner that accompanied the first course was crisply dry and a good pairing with the simpler presestation of the various seafoods.

Next came cider steamed clams:
Much like the clams from the previous dinner, these were fresh and had a nice flavor.  What's more, Tina and I both loved the brothy sauce.  It opened with the sweet flavors of the cider and the ocean flavors from the clam juice.  The tastes of garlic and white wine added complexity and contributed to a long smooth finish which ended with light spicy touches of red chili. Overall, the course was almost as outstanding as the mussels from the previous visit. The wine pairing, the Four Graces Pinot Gris, was a great complement.

The next course was perhaps even better:
Well cooked linguine was topped with flakes of wonderful oak smoked salmon and leaves of cooked spinach.  The menu also noted that preserved Meyer lemons were involved, but whatever subtle flavor they contributed was undetectable to either Tina or I [after reading this, Tina reminded me that we could taste the lemon, but we couldn't detect any actual lemon bits -- as usual, she's right].  Nonetheless, this was an outstanding dish -- the smoky flavor of the salmon pervading everywhere.  The course was well matched with a creamy Russian River Chardonnay from Fritz.

The last savory course was called Stewed White Sea Bass:
The perfectly cooked piece of fish was covered in a tomato caper sauce and was served on a small pile of salt cod flavored mashed potatoes.  Again, the kitchen had hit a home run.  While the salt cod seemed AWOL, the other flavors of the various items went together extremely well.  In addition, the Foxen Santa Maria Chenin Blanc was an ideal match.  In fact, to my tongue, it is one of the best Chenin Blancs that I have ever tasted.

The menu listed tiramisu for dessert, but the apologetic waiter explained that the tiramisu just wasn't right that evening and was too heavy for the other courses.  Instead, we received a couple of slices of manchego cheese, surrounded by slices of Granny Smith apples, the whole dessert being drizzled with fresh honey.  I have no idea what the tiramisu would've been like, but this light dessert was a fine, if somewhat pedestrian, ending for the meal. 
 
All in all, Tina and I were pleased with the restaurant and the meals that we had had. My only major complaint about both meals is that The Fishery could serve better bread.  While the room gets a little noisy, we thought that the atmosphere was fine, particularly for a seafood house. Prices, while not cheap, seemed very fair for the quality of the fish.  The service was generally good, the small wine list was excellent, and I was especially impressed by the wine pairings on our second visit.  And the restaurant clearly knows how to serve fish with a range of tasty preparations.

Plus our desertified taste buds got to savor 9 or 10 different fishes in just two meals.
 

The Fishery, 5040 Cass St., Pacific Beach, San Diego CA 92109, (858) 272-9985

Comments

[RONW]

bravo

[Carol]

Enjoyable read! I chuckled re: the photo taking because I had the problems with the "auto" on my camera. For weeks I complained about how the "camera" sucked and not the person taking the pictures.

[Janfrederick]

Too bad the bread wasn't spectacular. I would have saved some for those clams.

[ed (from Yuma)]

Thanks RON. Glad you liked Carol. I never owned a camera until Kirk talked me into buying one. At least you don't have to get food to smile.

The bread, Jan, wasn't terrible, but wasn't consistent. The best we had was the sourdough in the bread photo, but by the time we were dipping bread into the clam juice, another more orinary white bread had taken its place.

[Anthony]

It's funny you guys posted the fish and chips. We went to the Fishery last year, and I ordered the fish and chips, since it was half the price of everything else on the menu.

It was absolutely delicious. My friend ordered a more typical entree, and ended up stealing half of my meal!

Do you guys know of other great fish and chips joints in San Diego?

[ed (from Yuma)]

Anthony, I'd had the f & c at The Fishery before, so I knew that it'd be good. And it is also a huge portion. To be honest, I can't think off hand of other fish and chips in San Diego that I like - but I'll ask Kirk and Cathy if they know of other good versions.

[Cathy]

Hi Anthony. The Mister and I really love The Fishery, but tend to go to the less formal Point Loma Seafoods. Here is a link to my first post: http://mmm-yoso.typepad.com/mmmyoso/2007/09/point-loma-seaf.html A second post is in the works. -C

[Anthony]

Thanks a bunch! Will definitely check out Point Loma Seafood next time I'm looking for a place to eat in the vicinity.