Tasmania - Flippers Seafood

1 Constitution Wharf, Hobart

Here's a W&F Top Tip: if you are in Hobart, take the advice of Flippers Seafood and order yourself a Bag of Treats.

Along Constitution Dock are four 'floating wharves'; two selling fresh seafood for you to take home and create your own masterwork, and two selling cooked seafood. Flippers (closest to town) has an extremely approachable menu, once you get your head around just how many choices there are! In this seafood savvy town there is rarely something as straightforward to order as just 'fish and chips'. Here you can pick exactly which variety of piscine meat you want encased in batter - trevalla, blue grenadier, couta, etc. There is a daily special, based on that morning's catch, as well as packs galore. And then there are the various morsels, each of which you can order individually and hence mix and match to put together your own paper bag of fried fish heaven.

I approached the morsel situation with some guidance, going for Flippers Bag of Treats. I've received good value fish and chips with change from $8 before, but this $7.20 bag of deliciousness was absolutely the gastronomic highlight of the trip (and only just pipped for Number 1 Highlight overall by the fact that we saw a wombat in the wild!).From the menu, the Bag comprised of: 1 x battered scallop, 1 x garlic prawn, 1 x prawn cutlet, 1 x crab stick, 2 x seafood bites, 2 x calamari rings. I scored a bonus Bag, with an extra portion of both garlic prawn and scallop, both of which were so moaningly wonderful I couldn't believe my luck. I didn't expect much from a crab stick but it too was sensational. The calamari rings were plump and one could actually bite through the ring and keep the batter-flesh union intact. The seafood bites (in picture below) were surprisingly dense and covered in more of a crumb than a batter. Each reach into the bag had me expectant to discover which new portion of fabulousness I was about to bite into.
SG got seafood envy and mixed and matched to get himself a bag with three seafood bites and a small serve of chips.As would be expected, their chips were also superb (Tasmania does also do a rather fine line in potatoes). Plenty of crunch, but not overcooked.
This was the holiday moment where you start to wonder if you need to pursue any other food avenues in town, or instead return to what you've just discovered for a second, third, fourth experience.

Tasmania - Seafood

Tasmania: an island of visual delight, geological wonder and notable gastronomy. Seafood is particularly renowned, with the east coast especially providing the opportunity to sample many of the ocean's finest as 'catch of the day'. Providing of course, in the smaller towns, that you've sat down to order by 7:30pm, otherwise you may find doors barred and staff pointedly ignoring the image of your wan, hungry face gazing alternately at the menu or through the window, imagining what delights you're missing out on!

Bayside Inn
2 Cecilia St, St Helens

One such night, in St Helens, we were left with the Bayside Inn as our only dining option. They provide bistro style dining, and while I wasn't expecting much I was firstly impressed that they were still serving (unlike everywhere else in town that advertised 'Kitchen Open until 8pm' but really meant about 7:40) and that the bartender took time out from his TasKeno duties to give us good information about the seafood options. He spoke at length about the Fish of the Day (trevalla) and explained that a poor scallop season meant what they had to offer 'wasn't local' (it was from Triabunna, less than 200 km away) and had been frozen. Concerned that, despite assurances to the contrary, our last feeding option within many kilometres could close at any moment, we both went simply for the battered flathead and chips (with vegies from the salad bar). They certainly do love their seafood here: so much so even some of the chips were of the prawn variety!

www.baysideinn.com.au (a website far more sophisticated than the hotel's exterior)

View Point Restaurant
3 Maria St, Swansea

View Point in Swansea is a delightful restaurant. Like many other buildings in the town it's perched above Oyster Bay with views across to the Hazards of Freycinet. Its interior decor is distinctly maritime, but drops anchor just short of kitsch. The food is not extraordinary, but most importantly it focusses on local produce, plus it's reasonably priced.

The specials board posed the linguistic problem of how to make a plural of 'Fish of the Day', as there were in fact three: prawn cutlets, battered flathead or whole flounder. My choice was the latter.It was all one could wish for from a FotD dish, really. Slices of flesh fell easily away from the bone, and I was left with a satisfying whole-fish skeleton at the end of the meal. Any guilt from my second night of chips was assuaged by the 10 km walk I'd done that day and the contrastingly light piscine meat and accompanying salad.

Ordering was easy for SG: Tasmanian lamb with demi glace sauce, which came with sauerkraut and without the promised mint jelly, plus veg.The sauerkraut was a surprise and the demi glace more of a gravy, but the meat was both wonderful and plentiful. Both meals were happily accompanied by a Tamar Valley sav blanc.

Dessert - sticky date pudding - suited our desire and represented the restaurant perfectly.The pudding was sweet and spongy and the butterscoth sauce thick and buttery. The ice cream was certainly garden variety vanilla and the cream was definitely squirted onto the plate (with a maraschino cherry atop, no less!); but altogether the dish was warming, pleasing and hit just the right spot.

The best seafood moment of all, however, deserves its own post.

Promontory Gate Hotel (Fishy Pub)

Old Waratah Road, Fish Creek; 03 5683 2404

Our anniversary took us to a favourite B&B in South East Gippsland, Bayview House (left). On our last trip we’d tried places in the two nearest towns, Foster and Fish Creek. Since then, the Fishy Pub had been re-done, so we thought it would be worth checking out what it had to offer.

This is a great example of a locals’ pub. The night we were there coincided with the Seachange Festival in Foster and the dining room was rammed with big family groups and noisy with cross-table conversations and exuberant chases among the kids. With no idea of the menu I had been a little worried we’d find a $30-a-main gastropub. But no, the priciest thing on this menu was the Shallow Inlet Sizzling Seafood Salad, with squid, prawns and scallops, for $32.90, which sounds worth every cent.

I was really impressed with the menu. It featured lots of fish, being so close to Western Bay, and promised that all steaks were prime cuts, grain fed and aged. The pastas and risottos showed thought too, for example the Waratah Bay Risotto – sautéed scallops, king prawns, pink peppercorns, garlic, dill, seaweed in creamy white wine sauce ($21.90). Typing that out is making me wish I’d opted for that!

Instead I went the butterfish special, cooked in a white wine napoli sauce, and SG chose the T-bone steak with mushroom sauce (both about $22). We showed our city bias by reading the sides – ‘served with chips and salad or vegetables’- as meaning chips guaranteed, salad or vegetables the options. Choosing the last option, we missed out on further feeding SG’s current obsession with deep fried potato. Instead we had garlic butter chaps, al dente broccoli and beans, and a field of very buttery corn each.

The butterfish made me think of the white cliffs of Dover, so thick-cut and pure white was the flesh. Did I mention the portion sizes? This is a pub feeding hordes of footballers after all, and they were HUGE. Although well-textured, and with a complementing rather than dominating sauce, there was way more fish than I could do justice to. The T-bone was succulent and cooked to order. Again, the accompanying sauce added balanced flavour, indicating someone was out there stirring from scratch, not packet. Similarly, the freshness of flavour of the vegetables impressed.

A range of home-cooked desserts was on offer for $7.50. The trip was worth it for the beer prices alone - $2.80 a pot – and the pub rotates a selection of local wines. Tonight was Stockyard Creek, and I went for a fine riesling. The floor staff were openly friendly and attentive, and didn’t look the least harassed by the bursting dining room, which shows they’re well-trained and that this pub is deservedly popular.

www.fishypub.com.au