Fishers

Fishers
36-37 St. Clements St
Oxford
OX4 1AB



Winner of several seafood awards a few years ago, Fishers claims to be a laid back and unpretentious fish restaurant that serves simple and good food. The nautical theme inside with chip-paper table cloths certainly verify this point of view, but what of the food?



Seated with menus we are given some excellent marinated anchovies. The slightly tangy hot-sauce offsets the anchovy nicely.



We would prefer a fattier fish, but this was a nice bite to tantalise.



The menu is simple - fish, fish and more fish.







We made our choices, and the bread arrived with some excellent butter. Unfortunately, the bread was past its best before, and crumbed horribly everywhere.



Tabasco and chili powder in anticipation of our entrees.



The (very long) wait was rewarded with a platter of delicious, fresh, and plentiful bounties of the sea. Jumbo prawns, langoustine, small shrimp, fresh oysters and smoked salmon. Everything was incredibly fresh, with a brilliant briny taste.

The oysters were plump, but had unfortunately lost some of their brine. The prawns, shrimp and langoustine were simply poached in salted water, and their natural flavours illustrated their marked contrast: the large prawns were firm and meaty, while the smaller counterparts (with roe intact) were briny and tender; the langoustine were much sweeter with a very delicate flesh.



We had a pseudo intellectual discussion on the difference between prawns and shrimp. A thought the small crustaceans to be prawns, because of the additional set of plates near the thorax, and the brooding method of the roe (rather than shrimp, that eject their eggs). Pseudo intellectual because neither of us could remember the facts, so we were going by half-remembered biology lectures. Well, A was; I had nothing to go on except mock-aussie accents and jokes about the barbie.



The last, sad piece of bread - hard to the touch, and definitely left over from a kinder era. The only reason we had polished off the rest of the stale bread was because of the wait for our mains. Tables came and went, whole eco-systems emerged, evolved, developed nuclear warfare, and disappeared, before our mains turned up. Even the manager was getting embarrassed by the length of time it took to plate up, blaming the long wait on the size of my sea bass (doesn't look too big to me), and saying that it took longer than expected to cook. An hour for a whole sea bass? Perhaps, but unlikely.



The offending creature in all its glory.



A's whole lemon sole looked fantastic. It was served with a caper, parsley and smoked salmon sauce. Smoked salmon sauce? Eating it didn't dispel any of the confusion.



Roaaar! I love whole fish. In the end, the fish was adequately cooked (slightly over), and with an overpowering smell of thyme (many sprigs stuffed into the poor creature's belly). A's fish had suffered from the wait in a warmer, becoming tougher and less delicate. Not brilliant, especially for a restaurant that specialises in this stuff.



The chips were flaccid, slightly cold and not at all tasty. More on that later.



The potato on the bottom left is obviously twice the size of the other taters. One of the potatoes still had clods of dirt clinging to it (garden fresh, as they say), while the offending gargantuan was crunchy in the middle from being cooked for the same length of time as the other three.



Because of the lateness of the mains, and also a quick word about the problematic tubers, the manager graciously took our bottle of wine off the bill, and invited us to return another night, to show that usually their chips are of a very high quality. In fact, we hadn't so much complained as mentioned to our waiter upon clearing the table that the spuds were inferior.

The damage: £58.30 for an enormous cold seafood platter followed by two fairly decent mains, sans wine (which would have been approx £14 - a cheap tipple). The wait was too long, and service at times was difficult to flag down, but all in all it was friendly, and competent. If the manager hadn't been so gracious in dealing with our potato problems, we would have meekly left, never to return. With the warm welcome back, we might give them another shot.

Cafe Rouge

Café Rouge
51 St Giles St
Oxford
OX1 3LU



With a fantastic 50% off the food bill with the Gourmet Society, we couldn't wait to dine at Café Rouge.



Having had fantastic steak and roast chicken here before, the discount is difficult to ignore.



Café Rouge is a nation-wide chain serving (faux?) French food - mostly steak, chicken, and fish, grilled or roasted. Faily generic, but in Oxford it is done very well. It's about the only place in Oxford one can find a steak cooked to order, rather than uniformly grey.



The highlight is usually the dessert menu.



My duo of seafood (crab mayonnaise, and smoked salmon) was somewhat disappointing. The salmon was marvellous, but the crab was scant and mayonnaise overpowering.



A chose the daily special of escargot served one of three ways (with spinach, or garlic butter, or goat's cheese). The garlic butter was delicious, and snails tender and flavourful but without the earthy stink that they sometimes have.



We asked the waiter the provenance of the snails, and after several iterations he got it out of chef that they were sent alive from France and not frozen as we had assumed.


A's seabass with spinach was served possibly poached. The skin was certainly flaccid, with no sign of crispness. The fish was cooked nicely though, with good flavour. It was just a shame that the crisp skin, usually the highlight of seabass, was left out.

My marinated bavette steak was delicious. Recommended by our flamboyant (Brazillian) waiter, it came with excellent frites, and served rare (or as near as possible) as requested. When ordering, we asked what bavette was, not being familiar with the term. After some confusion, our waitre rubs his tummy and declares 'the belly!' And indeed it was - a trimmed piece of thin skirt steak marinated in oil, garlic, spices and wine, and grilled rare. Slightly chewy but with an intense flavour of beef and the marinade, this is definitely one of the better steaks I've recently had.



A couldn't resist the trio of desserts: lemon tart, rum baba and chocolate truffle torte. The lemon tart was perfectly light with a zesty flavour, and topped with brulée sugar. The rum baba lacked rum - rather it was watered down for the English I expect, and the chocolate truffle torte was decadent and heavenly.



The damage: with 50% off the food bill, and a bottle of wine, dinner for the two of us came to a meagre £41.72 - a ridiculous amount. Even with tipping our fantastic waiter heavily, we walked away from a delicious three course meal barely scathed. Paying full price, the bill would be £70-80 for two. Still excellent for the quality of food here.

Oxford farmers' market

Farmers' market
Gloucester Green
alternate Thursdays every month



Apostrophy madness aside, the market is a great place to buy fresh meat from farmers, giving better choice than the usual weekly Wednesday market, and with a few interesting stalls that outstrips the usually excellent covered market.




The hog roast man is usually there, and aside from excellent roast pork baps, he also sells fresh bacon and pork ribs.



Fresh soup is always to be had.



Local ales.



Masses of crackling: the hog will usually come to 200-250 portion.



This lady sells amazing goats' cheese. Garlic, herb, pepper, it's all excellent.



Small batch farm-made dairy products.



Not being a sucker for meaningless adjectives like 'farm made', these cheeses spoke for themselves. The smoked cheddar was singularly outstanding.





The pork man (one of many) sells excellent tongue.



Blue veined brie.



By 12 noon the doughnuts have all sold out.



The mushroom man sells interesting varieties: shiitaki, shimeiji, oyster and the best giant portobellos we've tasted.



We took home one of the cute little punnets of beets. Watch this space for our beet-growing antics!



All sorts of vegetables I never thought to grow at home: including sweetcorn!



This man sells brilliant mutton, and also game when in season as well as grain-fed duck, smoked chicken and also venison.











Mmm, smallgoods...



Little Whittenham lamb, as well as beef from a local farm every alternate market.



The breads aren't my favourite: I prefer our local baker at Gatineau.