The Smallest Restaurant Group Ever Goes To An Oyster Bar and Eats Burgers

The menu at Alberta St. Oyster Bar and Grill looks amazing. Besides oysters, they have things like smoked duck, braised pork cheeks, grilled halibut, wild mushroom risotto - I mean does that not sound scrumptious?

But - alas - the restaurant group, or lack thereof, was afraid of the word oyster, I think and either failed to repond or declined to attend. So. It was me, my friend Ansley and my sister Chelsea. We were not afraid. Mostly, we were not afraid of happy hour.

When we got there, we decided not only were we not afraid of happy hour, we were not afraid of the waiter who insisted on carding us at the bar, only to declare that he was shocked at our ages - he never would have guessed that we were almost the same age as he was! He thought we were much younger.

The truffled fries were a must and so was the burger - I was famished and not in the mood for any culinary adventure that did not involve breading and frying, so I ordered the fried oysters. The bartender made me a tangy pomegranate lime drink to sip on while we waited for our food.

Chelsea ordered a burger too. Ansley ordered the grilled rare tuna with quinoa, greens, and saffron lobster cream. Sounded delicious, but not as much as the grilled burger with blue cheese and caramelized onions on a toasted ciabatta roll.

The fries were more truffle-y than any other truffle fries I have had - and I liked it. Very different, but still fried. The oysters. The oysters were good. For the first ever oysters that I have had - I had nothing to compare them to. They were still slimy. But breaded and fried and slimy, with a spicy sauce to dip them in. I could totally handle it. But I kept going back to the fries.

The burger was close to what I had at Yakuza a while back, but not as big, which was totally fine with me. The place filled up fast and was abuzz with oyster eaters. Our friend Laura showed up and ordered... what else. A burger.

We sat, very cozy at the bar, watching one of the waiters erase and re-write the chalkboard with the oyster selections on it. I started talking about my day, which happened to include a lot of inappropriate conversations and well, I think more people heard me than I intended. Oops. The waitstaff was very gracious though and didn't balk if they overheard us, or when I broke my own cardinal rule of restaurant-group dining and handed them my card, along with everyone else's cards.

We continued our inappropriate converstions, left the Oyster Bar and went to buy a Christmas tree. We put the tree on the front porch and watched Lars and the Real Girl. It made me say to myself: "Good for you for not being as freaky as that guy." So pat me on the back the next time you see me, k? But not too much. I might try to run away.