Almost a year since they’ve opened, ‘Off The Hook’ draws in quite a crowd on a Friday night. Located down Park Road, this place stands out like a fish out of the water (ha!) as it adopts a seaside diner vibe with its interior and exterior.
Owner Chavan Mendis is a fantastic host, constantly running around to check in on his customers and making sure that they’re having a great time and enjoying their food. He tells us that what makes Off The Hook special is that their seafood is fresh; bought on a day to day basis and also because it’s one of the few standalone seafood restaurants that offers a wide variety of cuisines.
Atmosphere
Decorated with little life floats and black and white photos of fish markets, the ambiance was spot on. It’s the perfect place for a dinner out with friends or even a romantic date. One of the most interesting features of this place was the crab fountain. Yes, there is a small tank of live crabs just scuttling around back and forth and it provided me great entertainment throughout the review. It’s a must see!
The Drinks
Off the Hook doesn’t serve liquor due to the lack of license but owner, Chavan says that hopefully it would all change in a matter of months. In the meantime, you can bring your own alcohol or just order from their variety of soda’s and fresh juices like passion fruit, strawberry, watermelon among others.
The Food
So the menu is completely focused on seafood and seafood alone but it offers the preparation of it in a wide variety of cuisines ranging from Western, Japanese, Sri Lankan, Chinese and Thai. The menu is user friendly as it recommends which seafood will go best with which dish. So say you pick a specific curry, the menu would list along several sea food items that would work best with the dish (this is super useful for those of us who are a little confused about their seafood).
The opening bread basket is coupled with their own take on ‘pol sambola’ which is more pulpy than flaky but nevertheless it’s a good start.
We first began with the Japanese menu with sushi done in two ways. The ‘Crunchy Roll’ is a fusion of apples and tempura prawns and the ‘Royal Roll’ is a blow torched combination of tuna and salmon. I’m definitely not a big fan of sushi so I was a little sceptic trying it out but I was quite surprised to find that I actually liked it. The roll lived up to its name and was crunchy and you couldn’t feel the overwhelming taste of raw fish that always seems to linger in your mouth and that’s apparently because of the export quality tuna used by the chef. We also tried the ‘Gyoza’ which is a panfried seafood dumpling with soy dressing which was textural with a light crunch on the top.
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Then we moved on to an Off The Hook special, which was Norwegian salmon baked in a banana leaf and marinated in a special sauce (the contents of it are apparently top secret!). The salmon was baked to perfection, it was soft and falling apart and the special sauce was a great compliment to it as it gave the right amount of tang.
We moved onto the Sri Lankan menu and had their garlic rice as well as their take on roast paan with pol sambola and tempered prawns along with a fish curry that was a great mix of both Jaffna and Indian flavours.
Honestly, how many people can say they begged someone to stop giving them more food? 3 meals in I was already full and that was just one cuisine in the menu. Off The Hook was a great experience. The food was different, innovative and full of flavour. The staff is attentive and friendly and the atmosphere is a dining experience - I couldn’t stop staring at the live crabs in the water fountain!
If you’re a seafood fan and still looking for a place that can nail the right flavours in seafood - ‘Off The Hook’ is definitely a place worth checking out.
Reviewed by Panchali Illankoon
Photographs by Pradeep Dilrukshana
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