Mallard Cottage was built around 1830 as a one and half story home for the Mallard family in the Quidi Vidi area (rows of brightly colored houses); a house typical of the immigrants coming in from southeast Ireland.  We got to sit in one of the original rooms with the low ceiling but they’ve added on a larger high ceiling room that could seat way more people.  The old wood floors are set with new bare wood pedestal tables, wood uncushioned chairs and large paper napkins. In the larger room, that also housed a bar and stools, the music was quite loud whereas in the older rooms it was quieter.  Lots of quaint decorations give the place character.  Service was friendly but pacing was super quick and portions good sized.  The menu is small but they also offer a ‘family style’ option where they pick the appetizers and main courses for your table.  Wine pairings are available.  We chose the family style option but ordered our own wine.  

 

An amuse bouche was a pork roulette with apple cider mustard on a crostini.  The pork was super tasty as was the sauce.  It had lots of fun flavors.  Bread service was included with our meal.  It was a soft white bread with soft crust and a fresh moist interior.  It was served with a caramelized onion butter that was very good.

 

Blue mussels were served with onion, garlic and white wine.   They were good sized mussels in a tasty, fresh onion broth.  Very good.

 

Pastrami halibut was topped with roast garlic, basil and pickled mustard seed.  The raw fish was served cold and heavily covered with tasty mustard seeds.  It had good flavor and was a very nice dish.  The fun textural contrasts paired nicely with the dry aged halibut that was later brined.  Excellent.

 

Pork loin, potato, mushrooms, parsnip purée, braised shallot and chives was one of our main courses.  The pork was unfortunately a tad dry.  It was tasty but hard to eat too much of.  The mushrooms were good as were the onions.  A mustard sauce on the edge was helpful but overall this would only rate okay, not great.

 

The skin-on cod was served with confit potato, pork belly, tomato, roasted garlic and swiss chard.  It was a nice piece of cod and the tomato and potato side made a good accompaniment.  It was the better of the two main courses.

 

Dessert was a collection of items on a plate.  It included rhubarb marshmallows, spanish toffee (like a coconut meringue), pecan pie (very good), dark chocolate with seeds (salty), blueberry sponge cake (cold and only mildly flavored), and stuffed cookie that I could get down.

 

They sent us home with 2 pieces of white chocolate fudge that were individually wrapped.  They were not very good.