January 20th — it was the 11th anniversary of the day I quit smoking, and the 10th anniversary of when Lyne quit — this year’s about the 25th for Betty, and Sandy stopped smoking a long time ago.

So once again, we were off to Rodney’s to celebrate our taste buds and brimming wallets (hah. Well, at least we’re not paying $10 a pack for cigarettes). But before we went, I happened upon a link that Rodney’s posted from their twitter account: The 7 Things You Need to Know About Oysters. So we went, armed with new information, to Rodney’s on Jan 19th.

 Careful reading of the menu showed us a range of east and west coast oysters, plus other must-haves!

One thing we all love, and that Rodney’s tends to run out of (because other people love them too, fancy that) is smelt. They were on our first order, along with 3 types of oysters, and some tuna tartare.

Jewel-like tuna tartare served with arugula salad.

French-fry sized smelt: eat the whole thing!

We ate some other cooked foods, too — I think we each had a bowl of soup, but different ones. Lobster bisque, oyster bisque, the night’s special, and I had some traditional clam chowder (with a bunch of oyster crackers! Oooh, I have not had those in a loooong time):

Clam chowder with lots of oyster crackers on top

We also commandeered 2 orders of deep-fried oysters (that’s one for each of us). It’s really amazing the difference in flavour between a raw oyster and a cooked one. The flavours leave the ocean-side, and become richer and creamier.

Deep fried oyster beauty

And then there were all the raw oysters. I think we had 3 or 4 platters. I have pictures of all of them, but I’m not thrilled with the focus (I think I need to work on that). So here are some pictures — one platter picture, and a number of single oysters.

Three types of oyster, and one for each of us. The heavily ruffled shells in the front are Beach Angels from the west coast. The other two types may have been Mystics and Cotuits, Atlantic oysters. In the back, behind the oysters, you can see the lobster bisque.

This is how I eat my oysters. Just a pinch of horseradish.

Naked oyster.

Beach Angel shells — ah, empty. It’s the end of the night.

Thanks again, Rodney’s — and we’d like to thank our server, who was awesome and timely.