It Rains Fishes

(Originally posted 4/17/07)

I recently dined at a relatively new restaurant, It Rains Fishes, in Winchester. It occupies the space that was once Bangalore Club but the place has been expanded and renovated. It Rains Fishes is a Thai, Korean and Japanese restaurant. It has a sushi bar and two dining rooms on the first floor. There is an upstairs area but I am not sure if it is used for dining or not.

The menu is diverse and eclectic. I first looked at the beverage menu. They have a short list of wines, a number of beers and assorted mixed drinks. The mixed drinks looked interesting, a number of them containing sake. I am a big sake fan and hoped they had a selection of sakes available. Unfortunately, they only carry one sake, Ozeki. And Ozeki is not one of my preferred sakes. I tried an unsweetened ice tea. The menu had three different types, Thai, green and ginger but they only have the Thai tea available. The Thai iced tea was very interesting, with an almost vanilla flavor to it, though it was not sweet. I enjoyed it and would order it again.

While looking at the food menu, I was dismayed with the sushi menu. The prices for sushi were quite high. $5 for a tamago which is often only $3 elsewhere. But, their sushi prices are comparable to the China Sky in Winchester. What was odd was that when leaving the restaurant, I picked up their take-home menu. The sushi prices were different there, more reasonable. So, I will have to get to the bottom of the actual prices on my next visit.

We began our meal with the fried dumpling, which is filled with shrimp and pork. These were not the usual dumplings I see at other Asian restaurants. They were more like large fried shumai. They were tasty and came with a nice soy dipping sauce. For dinner, we had the Kop Dol Bee Beem Bahp with Beef and a Massaman Curry with Chicken. The Kop Dol is a Korean rice dish, in a hot stone pot, with beef, veggies and topped by an egg. My wife very much enjoyed this dish. It was plentiful and reasonably priced. The curry dish was also very good, with a spicier curry sauce than I have usually had for this dish. That is not a complaint though as I enjoyed the extra spice kick.

Overall, we enjoyed our meal and will return. It is a good place for casual dining and the diverse choices should appeal to many different people. I do want to get to the bottom of the sushi prices though.

It Rains Fishes
14 Thompson St.
Winchester, MA
Phone: (781) 721-2535