Updated 9th Nov 2010: This restaurant is closed according to Urbanspoon.ca.

We booked a seating to a seafood restaurant. A Kettle of Fish, or more affectionately known as “the Kettle” is located on 900 Pacific St on Hornby in downtown Vancouver.

The Kettle is known as perhaps one of the best west coast style seafood restaurant in the city. Although their menu consists mainly of seafood, they do have limited selection of meat and pasta. The names of their dishes off the menu reads of lobster, sockeye salmon, tiger prawns, scallops, dungeness crab, clams, mussels, artic char, tuna, alaskan black cod, and so on. Doesn’t that make you hungry?

For once in this year DOV events, we have sort of graduated from “water only” meal to … Virgin Margarita! 🙂 I had the Virgin Strawberry Magarita which is sweet and served in a sugar coated glass rim. Suanne ordered the Virgin Lime Magarita. It was lightly salty and and tastes like plum juice.

One of the appy we ordered was the Oven Baked Oysters Rockefeller with Spinach, Pernod Scallions and Smoked Maple Bacon. There are two large succulent oysters which taste reminds me of cockles which I like a lot. This is good especially with a squeeze of lemon on the crisp topping.

The other appetizer is what is known as the Pear, Celeriac and Irish Cashel Blue Cheese Vichysoisse with Creme Fraiche and Chives. Well, it’s easier for everyone if they name this simply soup. The soup is rich with a sandy texture. This is probably due to the mashed pear in it.

Suanne ordered the “Steamed corn husk wrapped rainbow trout stuffed with spiced masa harina and served with a mild ancho chilli and corn relish” … a.k.a. the Trout. This main is unique in that the trout is wrapped in a corn husk. The corn relish on the side was surprisingly spicy.

There ia a sourish taste to this and the flesh tastes like flavourless mushy potatoes, even powdery. Moreover there are bones in the meat. This looks good but taste-wise, I would not describe it as good.

My main dish is that Capetown Hake braised in san marzano tomatoes, saffron, paprika, onion, white wine and served with garlic herb roasted baby yukon gold potatoes — another long descriptive name. Hake is a kind of a white fish like sole with flaky meat.

The roasted baby potatoes hidden underneath the fish was good.

For desserts, we had the … hear this … “Stacked layers of creamy chocolate mousse, light cocoa meringue and dense chocolate brownie complemented with a cranberry caramel sauce”. There is a rich mix of different types of chocolate sweetness in layers. I can taste 3 distinct textures in each mouthful. Very nice … very good.

The other dessert was the Warm brioche and sweet dried apricot bread pudding with a cardamon creme anglaise.

This is a $35 per person meal. So the total bill came up to $93 including tax and tips. Drinks was $7. In all, other than the really bland trout, this meal was really good. It was relaxing and I enjoyed it a lot.

I was so full but was really tempted to order their lobsters. I saw a neighboring table having lobsters. They looked so good. The Kettle have half-servings of these lobsters for $19. This is definitely a place I would love to make a return visit.