Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar
These days my family wants to try all sorts of high end restaurants. Funny thing is when I was a kid all we ate was Chinese food at Chinese restaurants, now they want to try everything! Of course I'm the one paying now... My poor wallet.
On with the food!
Bread!
Well, try not to focus on the bread (which was fresh and warm!), but focus on the condiments. The bread was served with Nori (roasted seaweed) butter, and a Carrot puree hummus (we loved this!). Both were amazing with the bread. I think we ended up eating more bread than we should of as I noticed a table next to us was forced to eat toast squares instead of these warm buns.
Kurobota Pork cheeks with Cauliflower couscous & lemon caper butter
It looks like fried schnitzels, but wow it was tasty, it was a braised pork cheek that is then deep fried. My wife doesn't normally crave fried food, but she loved it, the pork was very tender and flavourful and she gobbled up the cauliflower. In fact my whole family enjoyed sampling this. A real winner!
From the Raw bar I ordered a Crab (with real crab! Not that shredded fish paste you get in a cheap California roll), smoked salmon, and roasted Unagi roll. Called the "Stamina Roll", with a single piece of Toro Nigiri.
The roll was tasty and loaded with fresh crab meat and a sweet soy dizzle, but was a little too pricey for my liking. The roll was $19 alone and the single Toro Nigiri piece was $5.50. Very tasty but not worth the price.
Sablefish with a Miso glaze, Edamame, Quinoa, Shiitake mushrooms, and a dashi broth
Perfectly cooked piece of fish, with a lovely broth. It was amazing. The only issue for me is that I wish restaurants wouldn't always serve this in an Asian method. Everywhere I go Sablefish is always served with a miso glaze! I wish it was cooked another way. Tasty, but always seems to be cooked the same way.
Scallops with a Wild rice cake, caramelized endive and a citrus butter sauce
Look at these giant scallops! Cooked to a lovely medium rare and amazing! But the rest of the dish is ho hum at best. The wild rice cake was dry and boring, no real flavour. Just starchy rice flavour, Yay... I don't eat endive very often (if at all) and it didn't have any discernable flavour at all. So overall I'd say you should actually just order grilled scallops on the side (available as an extra with all dishes). Stick with that instead
Dessert
We ordered a Chocolate lava cake (yum but available everywhere), and a Chocolate Creme brule with Cinnamon chocolate ice cream and flambé banana's (super yum!) , they also gave us some complementary Walnut financiers (a nice way to finish the meal).
We've been to this restaurant several times and have always enjoyed ourselves. It is a serious splurge restaurant for special occasions only. A Happy Birthday for my mum!
