This past weekend I decided to try out a relatively new location in the neighbourhood called Market Street Catch. It’s located beside St. Lawrence market on the recently revamped Market Street. There are a number of new restaurants on the street, all with patios. It will be a great strip this summer for enjoying a meal outside and Market Street generally isn’t that busy unless it’s Saturday.
At this restaurant you are meant to order at the counter from the menu that is posted on the wall. You then pay for your food and grab a seat. The thing that always bothers me with this sort of set up is the tipping part. I’ve always understood the tip to be based on the level of service received. Here, at the point of paying I would not have received any more service than I would have from a cashier at the grocery store or McDonald's and I don’t tip the cashier at the grocery store or McDonald's so should I really tip here? After ordering my food and with the credit card machine in my hand, I decided to make a decision on the tip later.
I grabbed a seat and noticed two girls sitting a couple of tables over from me. They were both busy doing things on their cell phones. My initial thought was that if they were going to have dinner “alone” they should have just come by themselves. I then noticed one girl was flipping through a bunch of pictures on her phone. I assumed they too must be blogging about their food or at least tweeting about it. They eventually both put their phones down and starting eating.
When my food was ready they called my name but came directly to my table and delivered it. I had decided to go all out and ordered their grilled seafood platter for one with salad. There was grilled shrimp, calamari, octopus and swordfish. It also came with some coleslaw and two sauces.
The first thing I tried was the swordfish. I don’t know if I have ever had swordfish before but I liked it. I then tried the octopus. I definitely don’t eat much octopus so at this point I’m not sure if I’d know the difference between good and bad octopus but this one tasted great to me! I then tried the shrimp and calamari. They both tasted a little too much like the grill for my liking so I tried them with the sauces. One sauce was a chipotle sauce, the other seemed to be a tzatziki sauce. They were both to my liking and made the shrimp and calamari more enjoyable. I don’t know what kind of dressing they used on the salad but I really liked it too.
I was about three quarters the way through my meal and starting to feel full when one of the wait staff came by with a fresh plate of food asking if I was Bernice. I guess the food in front of me wasn’t a good enough sign to indicate that I wasn’t. The other wait staff that was now clearing the table vacated by the two girls on the cell phones directed her to the correct table.
I finished my meal and dropped a tip in their tip jar before leaving. I’m hoping to go back again this summer and perhaps have the grilled octopus with salad and just sit and relax on their patio.
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