Samaka Seafood
Samaka Seafood serves up platters of freshly grilled fish, stuffed calamari, and shrimp sandwiches made Mediterranean-style.
Tucked away in a Dixie Road, this restaurant is casual yet surprisingly jazzy for a maritime meal fix, regardless of what kind of seafood you're craving.
From whole sea bream and salmon steaks to sides of breaded smelts and half pounds of shrimp, Samaka — which translates to seafood in Arabic — serves 8 types of seafood on weekdays, and around 12 types on weekends.
You'll find the fresh selection of the day laid out on ice at the cashier's counter.Fish like red snapper, mackerel, grey mullet, and tilapia, which are flown in from the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, are priced per pound. When you've decided on the fish, you can decide on five different ways to cook it, like sayadiah style (with marinara sauce) or raddah, which coats the fish with wheat bran, Egyptian-style.
We choose the sea bream, which costs around $22, made in the recommended singari-style, meaning it's butterflied and deliciously coated with spices like chilli, with veggies on top.
Every order comes with hearty side of long grain rice, salad, and a side of light but spiced-up tahini sauce to douse your seafood in.
The sea bass (around $22) is marinated in lemon juice with an assortment of herbs like dill, garlic, and olive oil.
A seafood tajine ($26) is a medley of calamari in marinara sauce, served in the traditional Moroccan vessel with herbs and veggies.
The bowl of seafood soup ($7) is a viscous and rich concoction of seafood including mussels and cream.
Lobster and shrimp linguine ($24) comes in an incredibly creamy Alfredo sauce.
If you're looking for an Egyptian-style po'boy, grab the Pharaoh Shrimp ($16), a baguette stuffed with deep fried shrimp, tahini, fries, and coleslaw.
The order of four stuffed calamari ($16) might be my favourite way to eat squid, filled with a mix of rice, herbs, and marinara sauce.
Half pounds of shrimp are $14 and can be eaten grilled or fried.
There's even fish and chips offered here, though that option somehow pales in comparison the rest of the amazing ways to eat seafood here.
Hector Vasquez