For the Love of...: ...Catch Oyster Bar (Calgary)

Overall - 7/10

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Food - 6/10

Service - 7/10 

Ambiance - 7.5/10

Over the years, we have had both great experiences and some disappointments at Catch.  We really want to like Catch, but find it to be somewhat inconsistent.   Having experienced both the oyster bar and the dining room on 5-6 different occasions, we never left feeling inspired to share our experience.  On this occasion, we decided all the mediocrity warranted a blog post.

Darrin had the fish and chips, a battered ling cod served with fries and coleslaw.  The key to a good battered fish is the marriage between the fish and the crust.  The batter slid right off the fish as you cut into it and you end up having to eat the crust and fish separately.  The crust tasted like the that from a pre-frozen fish stick.  Instead of the light and airy crust on a good battered fish, it was dense and unappealing.  The coleslaw was perhaps the most disappointing part of the dish.  Even though it was just a side dish,  it showed a distinct lack of effort and care. It was soggy and looked as bland as it tasted.  We can't complain about the fries but it wasn't anything special either.

I had the lobster and beef tenderloin on fingerling potatoes, carrots and celery root.  Probably the best part of the meal, the beef tenderloin was flavourful albeit somewhat chewy.  The meat was topped with a half-hearted, sad looking cluster of wilted micro-greens, which does not bear any likeness to the picture on their website.  The butter sauce baked lobster seemed to pale in comparison to the lobsters we've had in Chinese restaurants, which tend to be very moist and flavourful.  (If you haven't had lobster in a Chinese restaurant, I recommend you do.)  Overall, the dish did not live up to it's $50 price tag.

For dessert, we chose to share the creme brûlée which was served with a side of berries.  This, we had no complaints about, partly because one of my favourite desserts is creme brûlée.  

On the many occasions that we've dined at Catch, we've always left full but never quite feeling satisfied.  Considering the price, all the neglected details add up to a less than pleasing experience.