Last week, in celebration of National Seafood Month, McCormick and Schmick's hosted a wine and seafood pairing event at its Chesnut Street location. Billed as "McCormick and Schmick's Fish Academy" all guests were given a little blue book at the beginning of the event. The six-page book contained mostly recipes, although two pages were dedicated for "notes" and a self-written "essay". The academy was to highlight the overall healthfulness of seafood and the specific benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids. Being seafood lovers we are, the health benefits of seafood have been secondary to the taste. The Fish Academy, in that regard, was a middling affair. Five stations were set up in McCormick & Schmick's private upstairs dinding room. Each offered a different seafood and wine pairing. Kumamoto and Blue Point oysters were well-shucked and chilled, accompanied by a variety of dressings. We found the acidity level and mouth-puckering flavor of the citrus blend dressing overwhelmed the mollusks it was supposed to accentuate. The mignonette sauce, on the other hand, was quite good. Our dining companion enjoyed the creamy horseradish dressing with the Blue Points. The oysters were paired with a Muscadet Sevre et Maine that wasn't half as sweet as we expected ... this is mainly because we thought that Muscadet and Muscat were the same thing and Muscat is on the sweeter side. The two wines are more like cousins than twins. The wine added a little to the oysters but, honestly, we were too thrilled with the mollusks to pay much attention to the pairing. We did, however, pay close attention to the other oyster dish's accompanying wine. We usually think of wine as helping one's taste-buds find new levels of flavor in the foods they are served with. In the case of McCormick and Schmick's Oysters Rockefeller and Willemette Valley Vineyards' 2006 Pinot Gris we found the sensations reversed. At the very beginning of the event we sampled a bit of the Pinot Gris without its corresponding food and found it altogether dull, no fruity or earthy overtones, just a straight-forward and not too tasty white wine. 
And yet when we took a sip of the wine after consuming one of the Oysters Rockefeller, we had to reconsider our initial opinion. The wine opened up, so to speak, and showed a much more complex 'self' complete with a fruity, but not too sweet, finish that had been totally absent from our original taste. The other stand-out fish item were the pan-seared-right-in-front-of-your-eyes sea scallops. Perfectly cooked and oh-so-tender, the scallops were also served with a number of sauce choices. We tried the mango/jalapeno chutney and the lemon butter sauce. Both were very good. Well, it's hard to go wrong with butter and lemon but the strange balance of the jalapeno and mango was impressive. Our companion tried the lemongrass soy sauce and was disappointed, they said that the lemongrass element was completely lost to the overall soy sauce flavor. A Columbia Crest Chardonnay was paired with the scallops and didn't do much for them.Frankly that's how we felt about most all the wine pairings, with the exception of the Oysters Rockefeller and Pinot Gris.
The pairings weren't bad necessarily, they just lacked the 'ooh, ahh' factor one suspects they were intended to elicit. We were intrigued by the red wine paired with assorted seafood canapes. We liked the wine (Riverina/Marburn Estates' 2000 Show Reserve Merlot) but the bite-sized smoked salmon crackers, and risotto balls (?) were unimpressive ... we actively disliked the risotto balls (or whatever they were, we're not even sure, we just heard someone else call them that ... that same person also said they loved them, so we might have been in the minority in terms of our reaction). Though not every dish could be called a success (one of the shrimp we bit into from the shrimp cocktail was frozen) we really enjoyed the event as a whole. The scallops were delicious and the Merlot was a pleasant surprise, shame what's happened to Merlot. And any time we can eat Kumomoto oysters is a really good time. We also learned about their Happy Hour bar menu which inclues $1.95 oyster shooters and $3.95 fish tacos. Plus we got a few new fish recipes to try out. One of which we will share with you, though we have not actually made it ourselves (we're making mushroom soup for Friday's recipe post!).
The following recipe is care of McCormick and Schmick's Fish Academy event of Octover 3, 2007. It has been altered in no way.
Grilled Tuna With Mandarin Orange & Avocado Salsa
Yield: 4 servings
What You Need:
Vegetable oil spray
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon bottled, minced garlic
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon firmly packed brown sugar
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 (15-ounce) can mandarin orange sections in light syrup, drained
1/3 cup chopped tomato
1/3 cup chopped avocado
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
2 (8-ounce) tuna steaks
What You Do:
1. Spray a medium saucepan with vegetable oil. Place over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic, and cook until the onion is tender (about 5 minutes).
2. Stir in the vinegar, brown sugar, and pepper flakes. Cook and stir until the sugar dissolves (2 to 3 minutes).
3. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Stir in the oranges, tomato, avocado, and lime juice. Set aside.
4. Spray the fish with vegetable oil. Place over medium-high heat on grill and cook for about 5 minutes per side. Slice each steak in half and divide into 4 portions. Serve fish topped with salsa.
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