Eat Like Ushi

This is far from a restaurant and more like the back section of a house that spends all day opening oysters. After being slightly disappointed with the oysters from Wheeler's (Pambula) and Zanzibar (Merimbula) and enjoying more the selection from Eat Merimbula, I hoped this would be the best of the lot saved for last.

As you enter the garage toward the oyster section, you are surrounded by awards of medals from Sydney shows. The premium (12 for $24) are supposedly the most recent winners although the website mentions supreme and extreme grade also. It seems the older they get, the large and stronger they are.

With nowhere to eat them, I placed them on the mailbox across the street. I'm sure many people have used this a table in its time. The premium oysters are a reasonable size (I'd call them medium) and have a solid strong ocean-flavour, quite a creamy core and a slight metallic aftertaste. Overall an excellent oyster. I ended up getting some gems and cocktails for the road.

They still don't quite hit the heights of Richard Haward's for me yet, but maybe I'm coloured by their clams I remember the best.

After running out of opportunity to have fish and chips in Merimbula (apparently Cranky's might have a decent one), it seemed a great opportunity to get some from Tathra on the way out. Luckily Tathra Seafood is close to the beach and happens to have an excellent urbanspoon rating (94%) for fried greatness.

They told me they try to get as much local seafood as possible. On this occasion the flake was from Lakes Entrance, sole and cod from Queensland and scallop from Japan (usually Tasmania when available).

- Seafood basket for one (with extra piece of fish) - the crumbed sole was excellent, soft, well cooked and the crispy thin coating great. The flake was a little tougher. Together with the scallop was coated in an extremely thick batter that was a little too much. The squid was extraordinarily tender but a little over seasoned. The prawns and calamari were good and the seafood stick was fine. Chips were a quality filler. Everything is salted but not ridiculously so meaning I only had to add pepper (which I prefer) and a few lemon squeezes.

Next time I would order mostly crumbed items as I felt they were better quality overall in both texture and taste. However realistically once you sit on the beach and enjoy the smells and tastes I don't think you'll mind what you order.