Manly Fish Cafe

October 6, 2013

Sadly I’m super behind on all my blog posts and this post is way overdue. That’s what I get for doing too many things at once. But, as they say, better late than never, right?

A few weeks ago Boyfriend and I were craving some really good seafood. Where better to eat seafood than one of Sydney’s beaches?

So, we drove over to Manly and found ourselves at the Manly Fish Cafe.

Located on the South Steyne, just a little way back from the beach, Manly Fish Cafe is somewhere we’ve walked past many times before. Now that we’ve been there, we’re wondering why we didn’t go there sooner. Their website promises the freshest seafood and quality produce. They definitely deliver on this promise. The food at Manly Fish Cafe was absolutely delicious. I’ll get to that.

The interior is very nice – simplistic but fresh and clean with white tables and walls and plenty of lights to set the mood. There’s also a stunning fish tank right in the middle.

The menu is extensive with hot entrees as well as cold entrees, platters, mains, salads and sides, and blackboard specials. We perused it carefully and decided on a range of dishes to tick off all our seafood cravings.

We started with some seafood chowder, one of my favourite things ever. I can’t find this on the menu so I’m not sure if it means they no longer serve it, but it was amazing and lived up to my chowder expectations. I can’t remember how much it cost either but we were pretty happy and there was plenty of seafood in our soup – no skimpy servings here. And it came with a side of bread – even better!

From the cold entree menu we ordered the Fresh Moreton Bay Bugs Served with Homemade Aioli ($18.00). It also came with a side salad. The bugs were so fresh and so delicious.

To pretend to be healthy, we ordered the Baby Spinach and Ricotta Salad ($13.00) from the salad menu. In addition to the baby spinach and ricotta, this salad also came with semi-dried tomato, cherry tomatoes, oranges and pinenuts. Again, this dish was fresh and delicious. It was the perfect accompaniment to our seafood main.

Our final meal for the evening was the Mixed Grill Sizzler ($35.00). This was a super generous platter of grilled seafood including the fish of the day, tiger prawns, marinated baby octopus, scallops and calamari. Grilled is exactly how Boyfriend and I like our seafood (no batter for us, thanks), so we were so happy to see that the Manly Fish Cafe offered a grilled seafood platter. Everything was cooked perfectly and tasted amazing. The platter came with a mountain of chips and a side salad.