Chewies Steam & Oyster Bar – Southern Fried Goodness

What do you get when you cross Rodney’s Oyster House and Ouisi Bistro? A casual spot where you can pick up some great raw oysters on the half shell along with southern comfort food.

The atmosphere at Chewies is a lot like Rodney’s with a high energy vibe that the staff puts out. You can tell that the people that work here enjoy having fun at work. We came here for Sunday brunch and were lucky enough to find nearby free street parking.

Not knowing the differences between the various oysters, we asked for a mix and our server brought out some Village Bay (top right), Kumamoto (bottom), and Shigoku (left) oysters for us ($33 for the dozen). The oysters were very fresh and on par (if not better) than the ones at Rodney’s.

The accompaniments at Chewies includes a cocktail sauce, a habanero sauce, Crystal hot sauce (similar to tabasco), and a shallot-vinaigrette. My personal favourite was the habanero sauce.

Oh me oh my, the Buttermilk Biscuits were moist and fluffy – like eating little pockets of yummy clouds.

I’ve heard that the 2 day marinated buttermilk fried chicken at Chewies was to die for. We ordered their signature Southern Fried Chicken and Waffles ($12). The juicy and crispy fried chicken is served atop liège style waffles and drizzled with cajun honey butter. The waffles are very filling as they are dense and chewy but I like how it remains crunchy from the caramelized sugar.

We would have just ordered the fried chicken by itself but the brunch menu only had the chicken and waffles option.

BBQ Shrimp and Grits with Poached Eggs ($13) feels like such a comforting breakfast food. The creole spiced prawns were a bit spicy and I found myself liking the parmesan cheese grits a lot more than I expected. Plus, the poached eggs were cooked perfectly and burst open like a vampire being staked revealing the bright orange runny yolk covering the grits.

We wound up coming back for dinner a few nights later. Our server told us it usually gets busy during dinner (and they don’t take reservations) so we came by at 5pm and didn’t have a problem getting seating.

This time around, we decided to get the Pan Fried Oysters ($13) covered with panko bread crust and served with homemade tartar sauce… oh so yummy.

The dinner menu looked like it had a lot of great choices (wish they had the same offerings at lunch). We liked the chicken so much the last time we were here that we picked the Southern Fried Chicken ($17) served with mash potatoes, green beans, and drizzled with cajun honey butter sauce – I really like how crispy the coating is.

We also wound up getting the Gumbo ($17) which has prawns, andouille sausage, and more of the yummy fried chicken in a thick and spicy roux. The coleslaw ($3) was a little vinegary but we figured we needed some more veggies.