Bluewater Cafe is celebrating its sustainable seafood menu’s 17th anniversary this year.

The menu, named “Unsung Heroes”, aims to bring awareness to local and unique seafood and to avoid species that are over-fished or harvested in ways that can damage ocean beds. Bluewater Cafe has always championed the sustainable seafood movement and donates partial proceeds from Unsung Heroes to the Ocean Wise program. This means as you are enjoying the delicious seafood dishes, you are also contributing to sustainability efforts in our oceans and beyond.

Guests can always expect a creative line-up of dishes when it comes to the “Unsung Heroes” menu; prior years have seen the use of previously unavailable ingredients including whelk paella, steamed gooseneck barnacles, and sustainably-raised sturgeon liver mousse. The creative dishes encourage guests to explore beyond standard ingredients and offerings at seafood restaurants. Menu items from past years consisted of dishes such as red sea urchin trifle, stir-fried jellyfish and poached periwinkle.

For this year’s rendition, Executive Chef Pabst continues to raise the bar with 8 delightful and creative dishes you will not want to miss. Designed to be the perfect addition to your meal as share plates, these items let you explore a range of seafood ingredients.

Some of the highlights for us would be the Uni ‘Gougere’, which are red sea urchin cream puffs for those who love their sea urchin. The Octopus ‘Bolognese’ was also a pleasant surprise and different from the traditional pasta one would expect for 2 reasons: its’ visually intriguing with the use of squid ink fettuccine, and we had no clue that the ragu had both pork belly and pacific octopus. The addition of the pacific octopus made the overall texture of the ragu more refreshing and light compared to a meat-based sauce.

The Asian-inspired Kurage ‘Bao’ is filled with south east asian jellyfish, chicken floss, spicy and sweet xo sauce, and topped with cilantro. It’s one of those dishes you can enjoy in big, hearty bites.

If you love your oily fish, then you definitely need to try the Mackerel ‘Nitsuke’, which features Atlantic mackerel filet poached in soy, mirin, sake and ginger and is served chilled with lotus root, spinach and yuzu. The dense texture of the mackerel packs more flavor into every bite, and the marinated lotus root and spinach serve as interludes to the concentrated, flavorful bites.

Last but not least the Carp + Trout Caviar ‘Cloud’ is a lemon potato salad with cucumber, dill, radish, green onion, capers and salmoriglio - beautifully presented in a curved glass atop the bed of vegetables so you can lightly mix the flavors together.

There are still a few dishes we have yet to try, like the Whelk Chowder and the Sturgeon Liver Pate, but we will leave it up to you to tell us about how tasty these dishes are!

The “Unsung Heroes” menu is available during the month of February and 10% of proceeds will be donated to the Ocean Wise Sustainable Seafood Program at the Vancouver Aquarium.

Enjoy the delicious seafood and the impeccable customer service on their enclosed, heated patio, or dine safely indoors in the cozy comfort of the rustic dining room.

Visit

Bluewater Cafe

1095 Hamilton St, Vancouver

(604) 688-8078