E-Mail This Article to a Friend Something’s fishy (continued)
	Sea you there • B&G Oysters, 550 Tremont Street, Boston, (617) 423-0550. • The Barking Crab, 88 Sleeper Street, Boston, (617) 426-2722. • The Daily Catch, 323 Hanover Street, Boston, (617) 523-8567. • Great Bay, Hotel Commonwealth, 500 Comm Ave, Boston, (617) 532-5300. • Jasper White’s Summer Shack, 50 Dalton Street, Boston, (617) 867-9955; 149 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, (617) 520-9500. • Jumbo Seafood, 7 Hudson Street, Boston, (617) 542-2823. • KingFish Hall, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, (617) 523-8862. • Legal Sea Foods, various locations. • Salty Dog Seafood Grill, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, (617) 742-2094. • Turner Fisheries, Westin Copley Place, 10 Huntington Avenue, Boston, (617) 424-7425. • Uni, Eliot Suite Hotel, 370 Comm Ave, Boston, (617) 536-7200. • Ye Olde Union Oyster House, 41 Union Street, Boston, (617) 423-0555. — RT

But perhaps by now you could use a few frills. Well, they don’t come much frillier than at Clio in the Eliot Hotel. Here the ultimate fringe benefit is an adjoining sashimi bar called Uni — Japanese for "sea urchin," a pet ingredient of chef Ken Oringer. Granted, Oringer keeps a lot of pets, the more foreign to American palates the better, and Uni’s menu fairly crawls with esoteric shellfish spritzed with strange citrus and spiked with various chilies. Chilean chochas swing west and east at once, evoking escargot in garlic butter while playing with the pungency of grapefruit-like yuzu and soy. Ceviche gets more than a twist when arkshell clams are marinated with passion fruit, plus crisp jicama and red onion. Even the familiar startles in new contexts and combinations — as foie gras meets barbecued eel for a rich tryst, for instance, or good old Yankee marlin takes on wasabi and white soy (you’ll note similar juxtapositions in the brown-plush-and-leopard-print décor). Pair it all with sake redolent of flowering fruit trees and served in a bamboo pitcher, and all at once you’ll begin to discern the many shades of meaning in the word "delicacy."

Of course, once you’ve gone upscale, you probably won’t want to turn back — a diamond in the rough has its place, but a diamond cut and polished and nestled in velvet has your number. One such gem, hardly hidden but sometimes underestimated, is Turner Fisheries, at the edge of Copley Place. A handsome spot that strikingly contrasts classic with modern design elements — as mahogany paneling sets off electric-blue fixtures and seascapes in stained glass — Turner’s tends to attract well-heeled types: post-salon lunchers, afterwork number-crunchers, and the like. But even if you’re the hell-on-wheels type, the menu’s sure to appeal, given the sheer range of tastes it explores — homey and flamboyant, local and far-flung. Whereas mussels might skew Portuguese, steamed in Vinho Verde with chorizo, broiled sole may sway Asian alongside bok choy and shiitakes spiked with chilies and soy. The creative bounty seems endless, be it braised, roasted, or grilled golden trout, wild salmon, or monkfish, splashed with broth, emulsion, or jus, and paired with cheddar-bacon grits, crab-and-sweet-potato-hash, or green-papaya slaw. Sure, it’s all a bit flashy, but what else is a gem for?

Then again, Great Bay is near-blinding, the dining equivalent of whichever rock J.Lo’s currently got. An architectural thrill with soaring ceilings, the Hotel Commonwealth’s signature restaurant shimmers in silver-grays and orange-golds, flickering with images of fish scales and sea anemones. Chef Jeremy Sewall’s ever-changing menu also shimmers and flickers with the pristine and the briny, the flaky and unctuous, the herbal, musky, fleshy, and filmy in unexpected proportions. House-smoked trout, for instance, proves unusually mellow, while poached cod is milky-sweet going on rich, holding its own against robust brandade. It’s clear restaurateur Michael Schlow means to make hotel dining an epic adventure again — an electrifying seafaring epic at that.

By contrast, B&G Oysters occupies the ultimate niche, having carved out a pretty little neighborhood place for itself last fall. Of course, since said neighborhood is the thoroughly gentrified South End, and since said carving knife belongs to renowned chef Barbara Lynch of No. 9 Park, don’t expect some sleepy hideaway. For though it emanates low-key chic — all metallic grays and marble whites and an intimate, getting-to-know-you layout — this oyster bar earns every last bit of hype it receives. The raw-bar menu, printed daily to reflect availability, may list as many as a dozen oyster varieties, from salty PEI Malpeques to clean Oregonian Pearl Points to Nova Scotia’s Bras d’Or, which taste like translucence itself. If you do manage to wean yourself off half-shells, the small main menu will reward you with hearty winners like the nouveau BLT (that’s bacon, lobster, and tomato) and a classic lobster roll. A careful selection of wine and beer makes for effortless pairing. Here’s to believing the hype now and then.

That’s something food-wise Bostonians have been less and less willing to do for the overexposed Todd English. While a certain amount of backlash against the Iron Chef was inevitable, and arguably even justified, the fact remains that English is one hell of a restaurateur, with an eye for talent and a grip just loose enough to allow it to flourish. Case in point: KingFish Hall. Located at the other end of Quincy Market, English’s only seafood restaurant is also at the opposite end of the spectrum from the aforementioned Salty Dog. It’s big and glitzy, with a whopping iced-shellfish display, a lobster cauldron, a rotisserie behind the curving bar, and whimsical mobiles of driftwood and beach glass hung from the second-story ceiling. And, under recently named chef Chris Frothingham, it remains gastronomically relevant. Tuna tartare still means something here, coming in chunks as juicy as Starburst Fruit Chews held together with spicy sriracha aïoli; grilled calamari is buoyant atop unctuous fontina polenta and pistachio pesto; and even shrimp cocktail seems new again, crisp and pure as its flavor.

Which brings us to that most unalloyed of Boston’s culinary treasures: clam chowder, that succulent juggling act of bivalve, potato, salt pork, and cream. You’ll find it everywhere, but before you try it anywhere else, you’d better try it at Legal Sea Foods, as part of a seafood ceremony complete with wood-grilled catch of the day and onion strings. The legendary chain has served its stew at several presidential inaugurations and a Super Bowl; with those credentials, even peach-shy Prufrock might dare to take a bite. So shouldn’t you?

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthtobias@earthlink.net.