Mermaid's Find
Mermaid's Find offers Seafood boil, shrimp, crab, and lobster tails in a selection of signature sauces as well as exotic flavours of bubble tea and fresh fruit smoothies.
Yvette Spencer, who's been working as a trained esthetician since 1998, decided to try her hand at the restaurant business with her mom, Ruby after having a hard time finding any decent seafood boils in the city.
Flavourless, oily seafood is what Spencer works to avoid on her menu, and the homemade quartet of sauces that her dishes come slathered in bring all the flavour.
All meals come with your sauce of choice between Ja-cajun (cajun infused with jerk sauce), garlic butter, coconut dream, and mermaid's blend which combines Ja-cajun and garlic butter along with a few other secret ingredients.
You also control your spice level, choosing between mild, medium and hot. Their own mix of crushed scotch bonnet peppers is what brings the heat. Literally, just one splash of the blend brings the dish to a medium heat level.
We opt for the Lobster Tails, which usually comes with two pieces ($39.99) in the mermaid's blend. This sauce option always comes with a bit of the pepper blend mixed in making it one of the hotter options.
Each dish comes with corn and potato on the side, which of course are both also poured over with a generous helping of sauce. On the plate with 15 pieces of no-shell Shrimp Boil ($22), we go for Ja-cajun sauce this time.
Something Spencer always keeps top of mind when purchasing her seafood from the East Coast and Maritime provinces is the size. The legs that come with the Crab Cluster could probably stretch as long as my forearm.
You can get one Crab Leg Cluster along with six Shrimp with the head-on ($27) for a full feast.
Coming with 12 in an order, each of the Mussels ($17.99) nearly fill the entire shell and are complimented nicely with the light garlic butter and a sprinkling of herbs.
The side options are probably plenty filling enough for a full meal. The Shrimp Fried Rice ($7) comes with four pieces of juicy shrimp. You can also get it as a pasta in a homemade rosé sauce ($9.99).
There is also a wide selection of smoothies and bubble teas, which come in some unique flavours like Jackfruit, Nutella and Pistachio (from $4.75) for which they grind their own pistachios.
As for the real fruit smoothies, you can add jelly and tapioca toppings for no additional charge. Flavours include combinations of mango, banana, strawberry, and avocado (from $5.25).
Mermaid's Find is quite a find for seafood lovers near the Castlefield Design District. With a long list of seafood and sauce combinations, you can't get these types of flavours just anywhere.
Fareen Karim