Welcome to Wednesday, dear friends! Halfway through the week, we can make it! We’re also at the end of June and I can hear you wondering what I’ve done with my month so far..well.. a couple of weeks back I ate at Fish Market and had a catch up with one of my best friends Lianne. We love a bargain and so booked for the £16.50 set menu which covered 2 courses. We both wanted to eat relatively healthily and on a budget so this seemed ideal and the restaurant isn’t far from Liverpool Street – we both work pretty close by.

I reserved a table and selected the set menu at the time of booking but we weren’t handed the physical set menu until we asked for it specifically once seated. We do love puddings (crumble and custard especially) but opted this time to go for starters and mains. Lianne ordered the asparagus and I had the salt and pepper squid to begin… the squid was good size-wise but the asparagus starter consisted of only 3 asparagus spears with some hollandaise (I think) sauce over them. Three! We let the waiting staff know that the asparagus portion was small, as you can see the plate looked pretty sparse – I offer Lianne some of my squid to tide her over which was pretty nice taste-wise but nothing remarkable.

The mains come and I’ve ordered the ‘piece of fish’ which comes with no sides. I therefore had to order something else and went with the minted peas and broad beans. Lianne opted for the fish pie.  When it came out, the fish pie dish was miniscule, around half a fork deep and maybe 15cm long at most, a lot of the topping is mash so I’m unsure how this could be served as a main, it looks like a starter. The piece of fish I ordered is half the size that you’d get in a pack in M&S, it’s half a side of seabream which is very small considering I had to order my peas/beans for an extra £3.50 to go with it and I didn’t particularly notice that the veg was minted. We mentioned the portion sizes to staff again who said the set menu is smaller in portion size, but this isn’t usually the case in restaurants and surely it should have said somewhere on the menu to warn customers? We were coming for dinner rather than for a snack or light lunch.

Over all, I paid £20 for a small main and a starter (no drinks) and my friend paid £16.50 for three pieces of asparagus and a child sized tray of fisherman’s pie. Effectively I paid let’s say £6 for the starter then £14 for the main. Look at the photo and see if you think that’s a dish worth £14.

While we were there another table queried their portion size, only receiving 3 prawns in a prawn dish. I’d say this is something for management to look into. Massive let down for a restaurant we had on the ‘go-to’ list for a while now. I’d expected a lot more from a speciality fish house but have had better fish in somewhere like Cote Brasserie – and I love going to independent places vs chains so this says a lot really.

Forked by Stefpuff

www.fishmarket-restaurant.co.uk

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