Seafood pelasures

Thanks to my family I made a great culinary discovery yesterday evening. They were leaving the following day, so a restaurant meal was in order. For reasons known best to them, they decided on a French restaurant – as if, living in Paris , they were not getting enough of that already! In fact, when I called up to book the table I was greeted with a cheerful ‘Bonsoir!’, and automatically cringed. Their French guidebook recommended the restaurant describing it as ‘the real thing’. ‘Relax, you’re at home!’ was the upshot of the review. Oh well, I thought, it will be an experience. Fortunately, at the last moment they changed their minds, and decided to go a bit more local. Again depending on the infallible Routard, we booked a place at the Fishers in the City.

Thistle Street looking west.

Thistle street, where the restaurant is located, is one of the two pedestrianised streets running parallel to the busy main streets of the New Town. I do like how that part of the city is organised – the grid structure is very convenient, but the style of the architecture, with relatively low houses made of the usual grey stone, makes it feel homely rather than uber-organised. Thistle street turned out to be a hot-spot for restaurants in the city, and, as we progressed slowly towards our venue, we browsed a massive selection of menus, from Tex Mex and Thai to bar food and Italian. Even though it was Wednesday night, lots of the places were full of people, always a promising sign.

Thistle Street looking east.

Fishers was easy to find, with the banners outside resembling sails, and large, tall windows which were already filling up with guests. We nestled into a comfy corner, and focused on the menus. The next two hours were full of hedonistic pleasures. I usually don’t go on about restaurants – in fact, it’s Skinnytoes who is known for remembering what we’ve had to eat four years ago in a certain small bistro in Spain, while, as far as I’m concerned, he could be making all up. But this time, I was really impressed. The oysters were nothing like the usual bags of salty water I have become used to expecting – they were meaty and full of flavour, and so fresh you could still taste the sea. When the main dish of fish arrived, our table became suddenly silent, and for a good half hour each one of us methodically savoured every single shred. The fish were done to perfection, and all the side-dish vegetables were ripe and flavoursome. Even the bread was excellent. We washed it all down with crispy, mineral Sancerre, undid the top buttons, and sat back in utter satisfaction.
Highly recommended!