Rubino's Seafood

I keep looking for a seafood market like The Lobster Place in Chicago, and it's just not happening. I'm realizing I totally took that place for granted. But I think Rubino's Seafood is a pretty good substitute.



Rubino's is a seafood warehouse of sorts, in the West Loop. It supplies restaurants and is open to the public as well, but not all the time - for example, they're only open until 1pm on Saturdays. It's a no frills, no nonsense kind of place where you can get fresh seafood at really good prices. Rubino's is "serve yourself" and they provide plastic gloves and bags so you can make your own selections, which is kind of fun.

Here's the menu on the wall. I know you probably can't read anything on it, but if you click on the photo a bigger version will open and you can probably read some of the selections and prices. You might notice that there are no fresh fish listed on the menu, I'm assuming because their inventory and prices change on a daily basis.



They had Mediterranean baby octopus...



They also had a barrel of beautiful blue crabs, boxes of oysters, and lots of fresh fish...but due to some technical difficulties I can't post the pictures. My camera and computer are just not communicating today and after an hour I had to give up...ugh. If I get it to work I'll post them later, but it's not looking good. I hate when technology fails me.

We bought clams and swordfish. The clams went on the grill, and I melted some butter with lemon juice, garlic, parsley, and a little beer to dip them in.



The swordfish also went on the grill, just with a little canola oil and garlic salt (and fresh dill after it was done cooking) instead of my usual butter, lemon, salt and pepper treatment.



The fish was great, and so cheap! $13.75 bought us enough swordfish for two, plus 16 clams. Not bad!