In a recent
video on the Travel Channel, Toronto chef Susur Lee and host Andrew Zimmern visited Fishman Lobster Clubhouse Restaurant in Markham, and ordered a truly epic meal. So, my friend and chef Joe Friday gathered a bunch of his food-loving friends, and we took a few cars up to eat the nine course meal.
The circular restaurant was lined with lobster tanks like this, containing gigantic lobsters.
Each table is given plastic gloves to enable clean hand-to-face eating. You'd never see this at any North American style restaurant, but why not? It makes so much sense...
Alex is really happy, he's about to eat a mountain of lobster!!
Here's Steven holding one of the lobsters they were about to kill, fry and stack in order for this malicious and gluttonous night to happen. Steven was also our food guide for the night, as he was the only one who spoke fluent Cantonese.
Manager and part-owner (I forget his name!) served us for the night. He left the IT company he worked for in China to help his family run the restaurant.
Cheers! It was Marie's (second from the left) birthday last week!
First course: Watercress, carrot and pork bone soup. Looks boring but it was like drinking meat. Simple delights!
Monstrous, spicy breaded oysters. Delicious.
Clam soup. The broth was clear as water yet so flavourful. Could have easily eaten the whole bowl if there weren't six other people salivating over it.
Whole white fish covered in slivered scallions. The wine glass of sauce to the right was eventually poured over the fish.
Here comes the lobsters! Took two people to carry it!
Here we have two giant lobsters. Butchered, breaded, fried, stacked then covered with fried fish confetti and shredded lettuce. WHAT!?
Another pic of us. We are overthrown with joy and excitement. We were probably the only table in the restaurant that were in thorough awe. Easily the most annoying tourists.
Here's a shot from the other side.
This is some of the smaller lobster pieces not included in the mound. These were baked in egg whites.
Steven reaches for more! See how he wears the gloves? Genius!
Next course was crab. It was good but didn't stand out nearly as much as the lobster.
The empty platter.
There were some other courses I didn't include such as dessert and sauteed greens. However the one other thing that blew our minds was this baby shark in one of the fish tanks!
