Enjoy Durham's finest selection of seafood and pasta's. Many alternatives for discriminating tastes! LLBO - Garden patio catering for all occasions in house or off-site!
If there’s one word that describes the Shrimp Cocktail and its owner Wanda, it has to be “dedication.” The long-standing Oshawa restaurant has been serving up authentic, French-inspired meals with excellent service since it first opened back in the ‘90s. The recipe, according to Wanda, is simple: take advantage of local produce and meat and make amazing, fresh food.
“If the farmer’s market is open, I’m there picking up produce,” Wanda says. After serving and managing for over 25 years, she took over the restaurant in 2010 from the former owners. And while the menu has been tweaked, she’s stuck to what’s made the restaurant so successful all these years: quality ingredients, quality staff and great overall customer experiences.
The menu has plenty of selections, from seafood to the popular rib-eye steak served with a smoky-bacon-and-onion jus, but it all comes down to just a few items. “We use only the finest ingredients,” assures Wanda. “Everything’s made in-house. People don’t come here for something smothered in sauce, they want recipes that bring out the flavours of a few fresh ingredients.”
WOW! For my best friend's birthday I was looking for some place special & different for us to dine as we both have very broad palette's & enjoy a wide variety of foods & very much appreciate different & unique dishes.
I was super excited to book us The Chef's Table because it would be a different dining experience & a complete surprise to both of us what we would be enjoying for the evening.
When I phoned to book they were extra thorough asking our likes & dislikes & gave me a little idea of what to expect which made me even more excited to go.
When we arrived we were sat right away & our waiter was amazing & extremely attentive. We ordered a bottle of wine & as he lit a candle for our table he explained that the Chef would be over to deliver one course at a time & explain each dish.
The ambiance in this restaurant is beautiful, very welcoming & made the occasion even more special.
He & the Chef came by shortly after & explained our 1st course which was a delicious spring salad with a seared piece of salmon on a bed of pickled asparugus & spicy green beans. The salmon was cooked to perfection & the beans were very unique & delicious. We both loved the dressing on the salad.
The waiter was very attentive always refilling our wine glasses so that we never needed to lift a finger. With each course we were given fresh cutlery & each course always came out at the perfect moment.
Our 2nd course was absolutely to die for!!! It was a mouth watering beef tenderloin cooked to perfection. So tender it melted in our mouths. Topped with mushrooms & parmesan cheese ontop of a bed of bell peppers & roasted fingerling potatoes & swirled around our plate a veal & red wine reduction...MMMMM! A dish we will never forget!
Our 3rd dish was an amazing bacon risotto topped with a brandy half lobster...also so good!
And lst but not least our dessert was an espresso creme brulee beside their house banana bread.
I was thrilled that I had chosen this Gem for his birthday & would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone. The Chef's Table is definitely an amazing experience & great if U wanna wow a special someone for a special occasion.
The service was incredible, the food scrumptious, the decor stunning & the price for all that amazing!
We will definitely be back!!!! And begging for the tenderloin!!!! MMMM!!!!!
We went to Shrimp Cocktail again for dinner the other night. This could be anywhere up to our 100th visit over many, many years. Not as many as Bob but it is still one our favourite places.
My husband always orders the Clam Chowder and he said this time it was the best he has ever had there, a little more spicey than before. I had the Crab Cakes and they were very good as well. They could have used a little more sauce on the top.
For the main course he had the Shrimp and Scallop Cachitorri as he usually does and also enjoyed it very much. I decided to have something lighter and had the Lobster Waldorf Salad for my main course. It was delicious, lots of lobster claw meat, apple and candied pecans.
There is so much on the menu to chose from that I'm sure everyone could find something to love. They also have sandwiches on the menu now if you aren't quite so hungry. Last year they redecorated the entire place and it is really quite nice, still a little noisey because it is an open concept. We went around 8:15 on a Friday night and didn't have to wait at all for a table but it can get a lot busier in the fall/ winter season.
We found the service was excellent and it was only 10 to 15 minutes before we had our appetizers and about the same for our entrees after the apps were finished. Had to save room for the six layer chocolate cake but even with both of us eating it I still took a little home in a cute little black takehome box.
All in all we have had very, very few bad experiences at this restaurant in all the years we have been going there. The wait can be a little long if they are super busy but the food is always great.
Great food, great service and at reasonable prices. I've been several times and will continue to come back. The entrees are the right portion size and the taste is amazing. If you are looking for a good night out I'd recommend shrip cocktail
Tried the Chef's table experience - really enjoyed the "surprise factor" of the meal, as we told them what we didn't want (no wild game) but they could make whatever they wanted. Meal started with Arctic Char over wild mushroom rissotto - awesome/amazing! Then we had some beef with asparagus and double baked potato pieces (something about cooking them in duck oil, and then cooked again) - really tasty. Then we had shrimp and tuna and beets - the shrimp and beets were really good - but I am not a tuna lover (can't get over the "seared rare / inside raw" part)...so I would have to say this was my least favourite dish. I am probably not describing these well - the Chef talked about reduction sauces etc...and described each course as it was delivered to the table. For dessert, they brought us a sample of 5 different desserts off the menu...it was nice to get the variety - but I don't really like having to reach my spoon fork over to grab bits and pieces of each dessert - I would prefer my own dessert. Next time we do this, I will be a bit more vocal in terms of what I want - definitely the arctic char and rissotto course for sure...a beef and/or pork and/or chicken dish(es) and perhaps something warm, possibly chocolate, for dessert with ice cream! The only negatives were 1. the night we went they were having problems with their air conditioner (it was a cold night and they couldn't seem to figure out why the air conditioner was turning on - they even had to tied back some curtains behind our table because the drapes were blowing out of control on our heads!) and 2. the waitress wasn't really attentive to us - perhaps because she didn't have to take orders, perhaps because they were getting ready for a large 40th birthday celebration - not sure what the reason but we waited a long time between the 3rd course and the dessert - to the point where we almost asked if we even had dessert included - or if we were done? Overall, however, I recommend this Chef's table experience for any special occasion.
We were looking for a seafood place in Whitby and...
We were looking for a seafood place in Whitby and decided to give Shrimp Cocktail a try. It was a forgettable experience.
We didn't go during an especially busy time, but service was slow. The food is adequate, but really nothing special. We've never gone back.
