Atlanta Fish Market, Buckhead

Went out again last night for another friends birthday and he chose Atlanta Fish Market, I am very lucky that my friends like trying new places as much as I do! The menu is large and can be overwhelming if you don’t make decisions well, but seeing as I do not have that problem I was ready to order quickly. However, others were not so I wasted no time ordering a dirty dry Hendrix Martini straight up to get the evening going. For starters we all split the Oyster Sampler Plate and Oysters Rockefeller. The raw oysters were nice and clean, I know it’s a matter of opinion but I would rather not swallow the sea when eating an oyster. I have never had oysters Rockefeller before but it won’t take me a long time to try them again, these had an awesome essence of bacon, I’m thinking they used bacon fat and we all know that makes dishes much better! I love seafood but always lean toward shellfish rather than fish; I ordered 1 Crab Cake, which is 95% crab meat, and Mussels “Gilbert”. I wish I saw how big the bowl of mussels was going to be because I would not have ordered the crab cake. Not that I was disappointed in trying both… it was just a lot of food! The mussels came in a traditional white wine sauce and our server kept bringing the bread so the broth was put to good use. And finally came the only tradition I like for birthdays, DESSERT! There were five of us so it was only natural to get four desserts when we were all so full already. We got the Creme Brulee, the Bread Pudding, the Chocolate Praline Explosion, and the birthday special Strawberry Shortcake.  We all shared and in an orderly fashion too, each passing the plates clockwise until we had tried all. The bread pudding was extremely sweet and topped with a vanilla cream anglaise, a good dessert to share! The strawberry shortcake was topped with fresh strawberry ice cream that was incredible. I appreciated how brightly lit the restaurant was, that sounds like a stupid thing to notice but it’s nice to see what you are reading on the menu and eating when your food comes. The last thing that I thought was cool, while no one in our party did this, is that one can go up to the fish tank and choose which fish they want and how they would like it prepared, talk about a fresh catch! I’d say Joel’s birthday dinner was a success and I’ll be coming back if for nothing else the oysters Rockefeller.