][1]Over the last couple of months, 5pm Dining has been busy widening the number of east coast restaurants on the site.
Lots of great places in both Dundee and Aberdeen have joined us.
As a result, we are going to be keeping more of an eye on the food and drink happenings in both of those fine cities.
New Aberdeen seafood restaurant
We’ll get the ball rolling with news of Rock & Oyster, a new seafood restaurant on Aberdeen’s Union Street.
It opened a little over a month ago with Ryan Fowler in charge of the kitchen. Originally from Fife, Chef Fowler has stints at Amore Dogs and Santini Ristorante, both ex of Edinburgh.
One of the guiding ideas behind Rock & Oyster is that Aberdeen already has lots of fine dining restaurants, especially in the city centre. As an alternative, this new venture set out to offer top notch seafood, cooked beautifully but presented simply and served in a casual setting with all day opening hours.
Keep it simple
The menu comprises choices such as oysters from Devon and mussels from Shetland; Arbroath Smokie fishcakes; hot-smoked salmon and langoustine chowder; crab and asparagus risotto topped with a soft poached egg and, of course, a classic beer-battered haddock with hand-cut chips sprinkled with smoked sea-salt accompanied by home-made mushy peas and tartar sauce.
If your eyesight is better than mine then you will be able to see a copy of the menu here.
The menu will update regularly as well as featuring daily specials. An ale of the week is also part of Rock & Oyster’s appeal.
][7]No fuss, no faff
The aim is to keep it simple. Chef Fowler reckons, ‘Service, as we all know, is key to any restaurant but I really don’t want to be fussed over with three sets of cutlery, three wine glasses and little room left at my table for dining. I also don’t want to be going in for lunch at 1pm and then encouraged to leave by 2pm. So at Rock and Oyster service is unfussy with simply-dressed table-tops, and diners can stay as long as they like.’