Billy's Seafood Company

We had a short list of things we wanted to do in Saint John. One was to eat poutine - done. Another was to go to a seafood restaurant in Saint John for lunch. We had a few places that had come up in our research and after checking the menus, decided on Billy's Seafood Company.


Billy's Seafood is located at the upper end of the City Market in Uptown Saint John, so we came across it pretty early in our walk (right after we went for poutine) and went back near the end of our stay to get lunch. It's both a restaurant and a seafood market.

We started out with some drinks. A got the Pumphouse Fire Chief red ale, which was on tap, and I got the Pumphouse blueberry ale:


Pumphouse is a New Brunswick brewery, so we were really glad to have the opportunity to try it. The beer was lighter than A was expecting, since it was a red, and he thought it was more like an amber. He was expecting a little bit more of a robust flavor, but he thought it was good. My blueberry ale didn't have a strong blueberry flavor but you could definitely smell blueberries when we poured it.

We decided to split their famous lobster roll (described on the menu as "chunks of lobster mixed with green onion in a light mayonnaise dressing"), which came with a side salad:


We both thought this was pretty tasty. The lobster was nice and sweet and you could taste and feel the consistency of the lobster without too much mayo or other stuff. A thought the bread was the weakest part, but I didn't think it was too bad. We thought it would be nice to get some Atlantic seafood while up in Saint John and the lobster roll was perfect for what we wanted.

For the side salad, we picked the Greek salad, which was a great option instead of just lettuce:


The salad came with plenty of feta cheese, tomatoes and olives, and a good vinaigrette dressing. It definitely wasn't as good as salads in Greece (nothing seems to measure up), but it was a nice accompaniment for the lobster roll and tasty.

In addition to the lobster roll plate, we decided to split the seafood chowder:


The seafood chowder had salmon, scallops, shrimp, white fish and lots of vegetables. It was very creamy and rich, but not too heavy. We liked how there was so much seafood in the soup.

Our delicious seafood lunch at Billy's Seafood was one of our last stops in Saint John and it was delicious!

Fast Food in Saint John

One thing we like to do while traveling is to check out the fast food offerings in other areas. We don't always eat there but sometimes just "window shop" to see what the different offerings are.

In Saint John, we saw that the Subway outlet had a bunch of sandwiches that we don't. The windows of the Subway shops by us are all advertising the new "oven crisp chicken" sandwich. But in Saint John, they have green chili steak and bacon, one that I'm not sure I've seen advertised here at home:


They also advertised the return of the lobster sandwich:


I don't think I'd really be comfortable ordering lobster at Subway, since (in my opinion) it's the type of thing that really has to be done right and not be as mass produced as Subway cold cuts usually are. I don't know if we ever had this, but it's not in our windows now!

Even McDonalds has different options outside the US. Often, they're better. In this case, Canada has something called the "McMini" which is a mini chicken sandwich with various sauces/flavorings, such as zesty mango, pesto and spicy Thai, and a "Tuscan salad":


While I don't go to McDonalds often (and haven't gone for a long time), the McMini is the type of thing I would like to try. It's a smaller portion size and a little more interesting than some of their other chicken options. But do we have it here? Of course not. But I wasn't going to try it in Saint John either, because we had a limited amount of stomach space and wanted to get poutine and some local seafood.

Any ideas why the non-US outlets of our US chains have more interesting food?

Poutine

One thing we really wanted to do during our day in Saint John was to try poutine. Poutine is a Canadian snack (from Quebec I think, but we couldn't get there) - french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Kind of like disco fries, but better.

We researched online and found a couple of places in Saint John that were supposed to have good poutine. One was Deluxe French Fries, located in the food court of the Brunswick Square shopping centre:


Sure enough, when we got there, there was poutine on the menu!


After a short wait, our poutine was ready:


It was really good. Our favorite part was the gravy, which was so full of flavor. It's probably not the best poutine ever as the cheese was packaged (and not fresh from that day) and it was in a food court, but it was good and we were satisfied with our snack. Canada is the first country on our world eats project so we will be investigating some other places here that serve poutine. It was nice to be able to try it in Canada to see how it should taste!

Deluxe French Fries is located in the Brunswick Square Shopping Centre on King Street in Uptown Saint John. If you're in Saint John for a cruise, it is a very short walk from the ship terminal and connects to both Market Square and City Market by pedway. The food court is on the lower level.