Happy Fish Raw Bar
330 Elgin St., 613-656-6689,
happyfishrawbar.ca
Open:
Tuesday to Sunday 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., closed Tuesday
Prices:
small plates $9 to $18, mains $18 to $25, seafood towers $20 to $75
Access:
steps to front door
During my three dinners at the Happy Fish Raw Bar, the servers have been as happy as, let’s say, fish in a raw bar. They were certainly more chipper than I would have been in their shoes.
The four-month-old bar’s front window faces one reason for displeasure: an unsightly, much-dug-up stretch of Elgin Street. You have to feel for all of the neighbouring businesses with construction on their doorsteps, and we wondered to what extent the rubble and fences had dissuaded potential customers for Happy Fish’s seafood and cocktails. As it was, each time I was there, Happy Fish was empty except for me, my companions and servers extolling the virtues of fresh seafood that arrived at the kitchen daily.
Mind you, we might simply have been unfashionably early, based on some of the posts on the bar’s Facebook page. Given its social media, Happy Fish, which replaced Kat & Kraken, is for lovers of DJ-powered nightlife, not just fans of fish and shellfish. Judging by my meals, the bar may well please partiers more than customers seeking a memorable seafood dinner.
The signature item at Happy Fish is its seafood tower, a two-tiered platter starring many mussels, oysters, shrimp, some tuna, and a lobster tail, supported by the common accoutrements (cocktail sauce, melted butter, mignonette, lemon).
Few restaurant offerings signal a festive night out like a shareable seafood tower. But Happy Fish’s tower, which at $75 is admittedly at least a good $20 cheaper than seafood towers in Ottawa, still feels like it’s a cheaper version of a deluxe splurge.
Best among the tower’s goodies were the tender and seasoned shrimp and lobster tail. Tuna here was designated as “saku” tuna, a term that was new to me. “Saku,” I learned later, refers not to a type of tuna but to a block-shaped cut of the fish, typically flash-frozen immediately after the fish is caught. Sadly, my taste buds suggested to me that at Happy Fish, “saku” might as well be translated as “without taste.”
Meanwhile, the mussels, which made up a disproportionately large part of the tower, were just OK, and the oysters were scarcely better.
It struck us that while Happy Fish has been much renovated, with chandeliers and green and red velvet seating, there is no raw bar per se where shellfish are shucked and served. As one of my dining companions said, “I like my raw bars to be in plain view.”
That night, we also ordered one cooked item from Happy Fish’s concise, one-page menu. The lobster mac ‘n’ cheese ($25), while very buttery, was otherwise bland, under-seasoned and lacking in creaminess, while its lobster was chewy. Again, what we ordered fell short of feeling like the indulgence it should have been.
It took the kitchen so long to send out our seafood tower and lobster mac ‘n’ cheese that the server brought us a martini glass filled with bar nibbles to tide us over and later comped us an OK slab of gluten-free chocolate peanut butter cheesecake.
At my later dinners, simply prepared small plates tended to disappoint.
Seafood chowder ($9) was generously portioned and thick with shrimp. But it registered as more mushy than fresh and creamy, and it needed more seasoning. Lobster taquitos ($15) were underwhelming fried corn tortillas filled with enough lobster to add flavour without adding heft.
We liked the good-looking poke nachos ($18) — even if they are neither poke nor nachos, really — for the crispness of their fried wontons and the flavours of lime, wasabi and ponzu. But the cubes of saku tuna once again tasted like not much at all, and they seemed stingily rationed to boot.
Best of these appetizers was an order of buttery shrimp ($17), buttressed by croutons and cheese. While it seemed to have been harshly broiled and under-garlicked, the dish was still enjoyable, if not as pure and potent as classic Spanish gambas al ajillo.
Shrimp, this time battered and seasoned, starred in a po’ boy sandwich ($19) that was alright but for some avocado that had no taste and some Caesar salad on the side that felt perfunctory and excessively oily. The menu’s one nod to red-meat lovers, the “one” burger ($18), was moist enough, but lacked flavour and seasoning while its bacon verged on incinerated.
If I were a different kind of patron, I might enjoy Happy Fish Raw Bar for its patio parties, bottle service and karaoke Wednesdays. But as someone squarely focused on eating rather than partying, I’ve only left the place unhappy thanks to too much mediocre food.
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Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews