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| My "Medium" King Salmon from Greenwood Fish Market |
I seldom am a fussy eater. I generally eat all kinds of food and as long as it's relatively fresh, I can forgive small issues such as service and even subtle points in the food preparation. However, I got a rather shocking and terrible experience at Greenwood Fish Market Quayside Isle recently because everything was bad (ok, the calamari was decent) so much so that I wrote reviews immediately after dining in. I mean, for a meal that costs $300 for two, it surely deserved a little more standards. I'm rarely that "vengeful" but it was too much... It's safe to say that I will never visit this restaurant again.
"Lost" Servers
The servers were lost if I could put it nicely. When I asked for recommendations on the oysters and what would be a good mix, the server just said "order this and this and this" without explaining why. I went ahead and ordered the three kinds recommended anyway and did not really enjoy the experience. The variety felt like a bad thing here. The "Fresh Fish" and "Trawler Catch" were were. When I asked what was the difference, the server said difference was the price. When I asked what was available, the server said only "Monkfish, Red Fish and King Salmon". When I asked what was Red Fish, server only mentioned "Red Fish lor, meat is white". Wah hello, fish meat not white then is red ah? I probed further and asked if Red Fish was Orange Roughy or Red Coral Trout (those were the only two "red fish" I saw on the menu and I won't mind trying the Orange Roughy to be honest). I later went to walk around and look at the fish storage section and found out that it was Red Snapper aka Ang Kuey. Not sure because they wanted to cover up that their "Trawler Catch" is just something I can buy at NTUC.
The "everything don't have" menu
I can accept restaurants not having certain items on the menu from time to time especially if they're fresh catch or seasonal. But not when more then half of the selection isn't available. It was shocking that of the 20 plus kinds of fresh oysters they had on the menu, they had half of the oysters available only. Of the 20 types of fishes available for "Fresh Fish" and "Trawler Catch", they only had 3 or 4! I had actually looked forward to the variety and wanted to try and compare and really had fun. Might as well just put 5 staple fish on the menu only and the rest of the special fish on the catch of the day kind of thing?
Half hearted Oyster Shucking
The oysters were really decent for the price and this is credit due. But the way they were handled weren't reflective of the quality. Attention to detail with the shucking was horrendous with bits of shell everywhere and it was a terrible experience. You only kind of expect this kind of shucking during cheap seafood buffets. And also it seemed that the brining liquid that they use to run through the oysters may have been too briny. Some of the oysters were way too salty (not the type) probably due to the briny liquid.
Bits of hard rice in the Risotto
The Lobster and Crab Risotto was actually ok. Taste is decent and it's perfect if you want something "safe" and easy to eat especially if you brought your baby out. Small thing though, some of the grains of rice were a little hard to consistency was not too good. Either the cooking process missed a minute or two or there wasn't enough stock to cover the rice completely.
Terrible King Salmon
This was probably the worst thing of all and maybe I have high standards of fish but...
- The King Salmon was DRY and COLD upon serving. Very sad because I requested for Medium.
- The server mentioned "fresh" fish but I could tell that fillets of meat were likely to be from brined, cured or salmon that has been seasoned too long. It was unnaturally salty and it had a bitter after taste. I have ate King Salmon in Singapore at home (just go to a gourmet supermarket like Jason's) and overseas in New Zealand (oh man unforgettable) and this was out of this world terrible. It sincerely felt like a NTUC fillet of salmon may have been better.
- Vegetables were too softy and overcooked.
My corresponding Facebook post on that night itself for reference...
