Joe Fortes Seafood & Chop House

After hearing so much about Joe Fortes, I thought it was time to go! A group of us went during lunchtime because they have $10 Blue plate specials and Prix Fixe set meals for either 14.95 (2 dishes)or 17.95 (3 dishes).

Since Joe Fortes is a seafood restaurant, Insecuregirl, Fragileboy and I decided to order some oysters! We love oysters, we would probably drink oyster if we wanted to. We started off with 3 types of oysters – Kumamoto, Joe’s Gold and Local Beach. If you do not know anything about oysters, just ask the waitress/waiter for suggestions because you don’t want to end up with oysters that taste nasty.

The Kumamoto Oyster had a firm texture and a rich creamy flavour. The after taste was quite interesting since it ended with a buttery-sweet and mildly fruity, with just a hint of briny flavour. Apparently it’s very popular. I really loved this one a lot. As you can tell, this oyster came from Japan.

Joe’s gold was a bigger than the Kumamoto Oyster. Joe’s gold oyster had a mild, fresh flavour with a sweet finish. These oysters are specially ordered from Saw Mill Bay for Joe Fortes…thus the name – Joe’s gold.

The last oyster – Local beach was about the same size as Joe’s gold. It also had a mild fresh flavour but it also tasted salty and briny.

For more info on local BC oysters check out:
http://www.pacifickiss.ca/about-bc-oysters/bc-oyster-buyers-guide

Enough about oysters, let’s get back to the meal! InsecureGirl, CanuckGirl and I had the Cup of New England Clam chowder as an appetizer, part of our prix fixe meal set. It came with oyster crackers on the side to add into the Clam chowder. Inside the clam chowder there were cream, potatoes, bacon, thyme and of course clams. It was an ok chowder but I really wished there were more clams in the chowder because I didn’t find much of it expect for maybe half a clam. The crackers were a nice touch when you wanted more texture in your chowder.

M and FragileBoy had the Halibut and Chips. M’s Halibut came on his dish looking like a fish. It was super amazing because FragileBoy’s Halibut looked nothing like a fish. The batter was really nice and crispy. The halibut inside was perfectly done on the inside. There was also tartar sauce to dip the halibut into. The tartar sauce tasted like normal tartar sauce but with more of a dill taste. The fries on th bottom were really good as well. One thing the whole table agreed on was that the fries had a “Mc Donald’s” aftertaste, which was interesting, but it made us all want to eat it more.

InsecureGirl, TaiwaneseGirl and CanuckGirl all got the Wild Salmon with mashed potatoes. The Salmon was just ok by itself but if you ate it with the corn and peppers on the bottom, it just adds to the dish so much more! The sweetness from the corn really balances out the taste.

I ordered the blue cheese meatloaf. It was really good since I’ve actually never had meatloaf before. Tasted really good with the corn on the bottom. I found that it was quite a large dish for myself and was quite meaty…since it is a meatloaf. I wanted more vegetables to really break the meaty taste from my mouth.

To finish everything off, there was dessert! I ordered the Vanilla crème brulee.

The crème brulee was nice and crunchy at the top and creamy at the bottom. I didn’t like the mound of whipped cream on the side. I didn’t think it added much to the dish.

TaiwaneseGirl ordered the Vanilla Gelato with Chocolate Ganache drizzled on top. The wafer and the chocolate ganache added a lot of texture to the gelato. It was very well done and great dessert to finish the meal.

For the price of the food, it could have been way better since there are so many other seafood restaurants in Vancouver. I might as well spend the same amount of money elsewhere to get better food with more amounts.

Joe Fortes is the king of seafood but the menu is quite pricy if you go for dinner. If you want to try this place out for lunch, it is way cheaper. A lot of the food we ordered was just ok and not super fantastical delicious.

We rate Joe Fortes: