A Lobster Lunch at Greenwood Fish Market & Bistro

Taking a temporary break from the French fest and back to yummy-ing in Singapore! Today, I had a very enjoyable seafood lunch with Y at the Greenwood Fish Market and Bistro, since we were both in need of a Monday pick-me-up.
This place used to sell raw fish at the front of its shop, hence the name – one had to march through the fish section before entering the tiny restaurant at the back, which was cramped and dim. Not only that, diners seated near the entrance ran the risk of getting turned off their food by the constant smells of raw fish wafting in from the retail shopfront. However, the odd set-up gave the restaurant its unique colour and character, indeed, it became rather famous because of this reason. On my previous two visits with E (before we got married…gosh! That’s more than 4 years ago!), we had only tried the hot seafood platter for two, which had a good range of different types of seafood and came in an enormous portion, but was not really that earth-shatteringly well-cooked.

Fast forward to today, the restaurant has now expanded to a second outlet which only has diner seating and does not sell fish. Yay for the smells, but nay for the insipidness of the new seating. Y and I were lucky that Monday’s special promotion was for lobster and shellfish – live Boston lobster (550gm to 650gm) at $39.95, and live New Zealand Greenlip Mussels at $9.95! Really tear-inducing prices (to the restaurant owner, that is!).

The mussels, which we had ordered cooked in white wine sauce with garlic, came first. These were so supremely fresh (duh, they are live) and the mussel juice was mouth-wateringly GOOD…briny and garlicky, with a smoothness from butter whipped in at the last moment. Although both of us felt that we couldn’t taste much white wine in the juice, this did not in any way mar our enjoyment of this dish. After mopping up the last of that delectable mussel juice, the dish of the day arrived! When our grilled lobster was presented, both Y and I were a little taken-aback, since it was a good size lobster and had turned a stunningly bright red. I have to say that the meat was slightly overcooked and a little tough but still retained its sweetness of flavour. An innocuous little pot sat on the side, which turned out to be an extremely delicious brown butter with lemon sauce. So more-ish in fact, that we sat dipping our fries in it as an excuse to savour that nutty fragrance, after the lobster was long gone.

It’s a simple fact that so long as seafood is fresh, you will get a winning meal (unless you are a really bad cook), so Greenwood Fish Market and Bistro actually doesn’t need to work very hard or hire culinary experts. Still, I enjoyed this lunch a lot more than I expected to. Hmm, perhaps another visit one Thursday to take advantage of the Alaskan King Crab promotion is in order…

http://www.fishshop.sg/