Diana’s Oyster Bar & Grill located at 7501 Woodbine Ave, Unit #3 in Markham

May 12, 2017:  For a late dinner, Ken and I went to Diana’s Oyster Bar & Grill in Markham.  I was craving some seafood paella and also wanted some seafood so Diana’s fit the bill of my cravings and was nearby too.  I was actually debating whether or not to blog about this dinner or not — I had dined at this location before last year when I was there for their Grand Opening party but since this was a dinner that I was experiencing myself that was not on a complimentary basis, I wanted to capture this experience too.

When we arrived at Diana’s Oyster Bar & Grill after 8 p.m., we waited in front of the hostess table.  No one acknowledged us for a long time.  It seemed like all of their servers were busy and no one was catering to the hostess table.  We waited for quite a while that we finally decided to sit down on the chairs in the waiting area.  Soon enough, someone finally acknowledged us and brought us to a table.

There were a lot of people dining on a Friday night.  We opted for some drinks to start.  I got the Chocolate Martini (2 oz) and Ken got the Riesling (6 oz).  To my disappointment, the portion of drink in the glass was really small.  I’m sure it wasn’t the allotted amount.  There’s no way that Ken’s drink didn’t even reach higher up the glass…  Mine looked like it had more volume and mine was supposed to be only 2 oz; a third of his!

Chocolate Martini (2 oz).$9
Riesling (6 oz). $8.50

Since we were at an oyster restaurant, we wanted to try their raw oysters.  However, their oysters were priced ridiculously so we only got two pairs of oysters to try.  The oysters were very fresh and quite good but the sizes of the ones that we chose were on the small size.

Oyster list for the night that we dined in

Condiments for the raw oysters

If I remember correctly, we ordered the Valentine ($3.25) and Kusshi oysters ($2.90).  (Oyster experts out there, feel free to correct me if you can identify what these oysters are!)

Our order of raw oysters

Kusshi oysters?

Valentine oysters?

We ordered the Grilled Calamari appetizer to share.  It was “calamari marinated in olive oil, thyme, rosemary, garlic, and serrano pepper for 24 hours, grilled, and served on tomato-basil sauce with fresh spinach”.  It was very good!  It was a moderately small portion size though.  I liked that the calamari was very tender and not rubbery at all.

Grilled Calamari. $15
-calamari marinated in olive oil, thyme, rosemary, garlic, and serrano pepper for 24 hours, grilled, served on tomato-basil sauce with fresh spinach

The Diana’s Paella dish was minuscule for an entrée portion…  It had “Black Tiger Shrimp, chorizo sausage, mussels, clams, assorted fish, and saffron infused Italian rice cooked in fennel-tomato fish broth”.  It looked great and the quality of the dish was really good, however the size of this $32 dish was not justified at all.  I really liked the firm black tiger shrimps, calamari, mussels, and clams.  The saffron infused Italian rice was also really tasty and soft.  However, this portion was so small!  After finishing the seafood on top of the rice and a few spoonfuls of rice, I could see the bottom of the dish.

Diana’s Paella. $32
-Black Tiger Shrimp, chorizo sausage, mussels, clams, assorted fish, saffron infused Italian rice cooked in fennel-tomato fish broth

I’m glad that I blogged about this dinner that we had after all because I want others to know about it.  Their dinner prices were very expensive and their portions were small.  Thus, even though the tastes and flavours were wonderful, I can’t see myself coming again for dinner — my wallet would cry too much.

Also, our male server seemed kind of snotty that night; not the friendliest and seemed judgmental of what we ordered.

Neat wine bottle display on their wall