Mitchell's Fish Market

I had wanted to eat at Mitchell's Fish Market Seafood Restaurant & Bar for some time. When the opportunity arose recently, I took it and I am sure glad I did, I had a wonderful lunch here.

I had received a gift certificate for Mitchell's from a friend for Christmas. I was off work New Year's Eve day, so my friend Tommy and I decided to try lunch here. We're glad we did as we had two very good meals with more than enough food.

First, though, a word about our service--it was fantastic. Now in all honesty, we were there around 2 in the afternoon on a holiday weekend, so they were not all that busy. But no matter, Chris P. took excellent care of us, was great at explaining everything on the menu, and made sure we were well taken care of.

We started out with an appetizer, the Spicy Asian Shrimp--true to it's name, the shrimp were covered in a nice and spicy/hot glaze. It was a nice heat, not "burn your mouth" hot but certainly a heat that you remembered for several minutes. The shrimp themselves were cooked perfectly, just perfect. They were served on a bed of sticky rice and accompanied by a little tower of pickled thinly sliced cucumbers with red onion. The cucumbers served as a nice and cooling counterpoint to the spiciness of the shrimp along with adding a great texture to the dish. This was a great appetizer. I and count on three fingers all the really great spicy shrimp appetizer's I've had recently, and this is one of them. I'd surely order it again. And the portion was very good, almost a meal in itself.

Tommy ordered a cup of the Little Neck Clam Chowder. It too was very tasty and creamy with nice chunks of potatoes and clam in it and a nice clam taste. And it was served with crackers--a must for Tommy. He did say it was good, but nothing extra special either, just good clam chower. But he did eat every last drop!

I started with "The Market's Famous House Salad." Not sure how famous it is since I'd never heard of it before, but it was good. It had a mix of greens with carrots, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, dates, and pine nuts and was topped with a poppy seed viniagrette. For my taste, it was a bit over-dressed, that is, too much dressing. But it was all very good and the dressing itself was very good. I liked the various tastes and textures with the creaminess of the pine nuts, the chewy sweetness of the dates, and the tangy dressing. And it was an ample size as well. Yumm.

For his main course, Tommy chose the Scallops and had them Blackened. Now for his taste, he said there was a bit too much blackening, but he does not like to much spice. I had half of one and found them good. They were extremely tender and well cooked. Two skewers of three rather large scallops were served on a bed of jambalaya rice with etouffe sauce, shrimp and andoullie, and accompanied by green beans with mushrooms and a cane syrup. Everything was very good and quite an ample portion. Tommy even had a doggie bag to enjoy another time.

So many things on the menu looked so good that it was hard to choose, but I finally settled on the Chef's Feature, a Sesame Seared Tuna--I chose to have it cooked medium--that was served with sushi rice, Kung Pao Broccoli, crispy wonton shreds, and wasabi. It was all exceedingly delicious. Now, next time I'd probably choose medium-rare to rare, but I was a bit timid. But the tuna was very moist and juicy, quite flavorful. Everything on the plate was excellent, actually. The wasabi was quite potent, the wontons added a nice crispiness to the dish, and the rice was very good I like this dish a lot--so much that I ate more than I should have and cleaned my plate--it was that good. 

If my first visit is any indication of the quality of food and service at Mitchell's, I'll certainly come back again. There were many other items on the menu that I'd like to try as well. The prices are a bit high unless you consider that you get what you pay for, and I'd say I did get what I paid for at Mitchell's an excellent meal in a nice atmosphere with great service. I'll be back!