Episode 0343

Hello everyone and welcome to English Pod. My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and we're here talking about some special foods today.

That's right, today we're going to talk about seafood. So everything that comes from the sea that we eat.

That's right. So we're in a restaurant and we're going to hear about the different options this restaurant offers. Let's take a listen to the dialogue.

Yeah, it's a little bit pricey, but they serve the best seafood in town.

May I take your order?

Um, yes, I would like some marinated grilled shrimp for starters and I'll also have the lobster.

Excellent choice, sir. And for you, madam?

I would like the baked oysters and the seafood platter.

Very good, madam.

That seafood platter sounds good. Excuse me, what does the platter have?

It's a great combination of clams, scallops, mussels, calamari, and fillet of salmon and tuna. It comes with a side of butter sauce and french fries.

Very well, sir. Anything to drink?

Can we get a bottle of your house white wine, please?

All right, we're back. So today we're going to take a look at a lot of vocab. So we're going to have two parts of language takeaway, and let's start with the first one.

Language takeaway.

Now, in language takeaway part one, today we have a number of really important and useful adjectives. The first one is classy.

That's right. So we're going to a nice restaurant, and so you feel like you're in a classy place.

Now, a classy place is a nice place. You might be expected to dress nicely, it might be a little bit fancy.

Mhm, exactly. So classy is kind of a synonym of fancy or luxurious.

Right. So if you're going on a date with someone, it might be a good idea to go to a classy restaurant.

That's right. But usually if a restaurant is classy, it also means that it's a little bit pricey.

Okay, so something that is pricey is expensive. And seafood is famous in America for being very pricey.

That's right. So something that is pricey means that it's a little bit expensive. Now, going to the food that we're going to get today, we had a couple of different ways of describing how the food was prepared. So for example, the first one is marinated grilled shrimp.

All right. Now, something that is marinated is covered in a sauce or a liquid before it's cooked. All right. So you can have maybe a regular steak, but you can also have a marinated steak, which would be marinated in some kind of flavor, um, like garlic or yogurt.

That's right. So usually you leave it in maybe some sauce like garlic sauce for a couple of hours or a couple of minutes before you cook it. Now, when we cook it, there are different ways of cooking things. In this case, we're having grilled shrimp.

All right. Now, grilled is different from fried. Fried we do in a pan with some oil, but a grill, usually there's no pan, no oil, there's just a grill. So grill, grilled. Grill is the tool that we use. Um, grilled food tends to be quite healthy. There's very little oil, it's a bit more dry. And often times we do grilling outside because there's lots of smoke.

That's right, because usually you have like maybe a barbecue and you have some charcoal in there or some wood, that's what you use to cook the food with.

Yeah, and grilled food is very easy to notice because there are usually black lines on top and bottom. That's from the grill.

That's right. So we ordered marinated grilled shrimp for starters. So what is what is a starter?

Well, think about the word, starter, start. Now, a starter is something you eat at the start of your meal, at the beginning. You eat it before you eat the main course.

All right. So it's also known as an appetizer.

That's right. Starters and appetizers are the same thing and these are small things you eat before you start to eat your main meal. So they're not very filling.

Mhm, okay. So yeah, it'll be something small like a soup or maybe like in this case some marinated grilled shrimp.

Yes.

All right, so great vocab there. Why don't we review that part and we'll be back in a bit.

Yeah, it's a little bit pricey, but they serve the best seafood in town.

May I take your order?

Um, yes, I would like some marinated grilled shrimp for starters and I'll also have the lobster.

Excellent choice, sir. And for you, madam?

I would like the baked oysters and the seafood platter.

Very good, madam.

That seafood platter sounds good. Excuse me, what does the platter have?

It's a great combination of clams, scallops, mussels, calamari, and fillet of salmon and tuna. It comes with a side of butter sauce and french fries.

Very well, sir. Anything to drink?

Can we get a bottle of your house white wine, please?

All right, so now let's take a look at all of the exquisite types of seafood that we have here on language takeaway part two.

All right. Now the first thing we have in language takeaway part two is a very distinctive animal from the ocean. It's bright red and it has two claws.

Right. We're talking about a lobster.

Now, lobsters you don't find everywhere. In fact, there are some parts of America where they're very famous for their lobster, like Maine. Now, these are animals that are hard on the outside and soft and white on the inside, and they're quite difficult to eat.

That's right. So they look kind of like crabs because they also have the claws and everything, but they're a lot longer, right?

That's right. A crab is round and a lobster is long. And lobsters are also famous for one part, for their tails.

Right. The tails are full of meat.

They're very delicate, very delicious.

Okay. So we're having some lobster and we also ordered some baked oysters.

Now, oysters are another kind of thing that comes from the ocean. Um, they come in a shell. All right. And, um, you might hear about oysters because some people, some restaurants like to have an oyster bar where they serve raw oysters over ice.

That's right. So they look like big rocks, basically. And when you open them inside, you have meat. And actually, I think you get pearls from oysters, right?

That's right. So, uh, these two are special. They have a nice relationship. The pearl forms inside, it grows inside of the oyster.

Very good. So, now we've taken a look at some oysters and talking about these uh things that have shells, we also have clams.

Now, while oysters are big and sometimes quite shiny, clams are smaller, usually white or gray, and they have lines on them and they're shells that you open up and you eat the meat from inside.

Right. So I guess if you've ever been on the beach and you're collecting little seashells, usually those are kind of like clams.

That's that's right. They're quite small. They can be about the size of a an American quarter, 25 cents.

Okay. So now in this seafood platter that we're ordering, we have clams, we have scallops.

Okay. And then we have some mussels also.

Now, mussels are much different looking. They're also in shells, but they're long and the shells are black.

That's right. So clams are kind of small and round. The oysters are pretty big and look like rocks. Mussels on the other hand are long and black. And when you open them inside, they're shiny also.

They're orange on the inside or yellow and so they're quite uh they're quite uh interesting looking, but they're also very famous for the French or Belgian rather, the Belgian dish moules frites, which is a nice specialty.

All right. And lastly, we are also having some calamari in this seafood platter.

Oh, this is another one of my favorites. Now, calamari is a kind of food, but the animal is the squid.

Okay, so why is it called calamari?

Well, calamari, I believe, comes from the Italian word calamaro. Calamari means that it's squid that's been cooked so that people can eat it.

Okay. So basically calamari and squid are the same thing. They are the same animal, but calamari means that it's prepared to to eat.

Yes, and usually it's fried. So when squid is fried, it becomes hard or chewy. And that's what calamari tastes like. It's quite chewy.

All right, great stuff. So why don't we review everything one last time with this exquisite lesson?

Yeah, it's a little bit pricey, but they serve the best seafood in town.

May I take your order?

Um, yes, I would like some marinated grilled shrimp for starters and I'll also have the lobster.

Excellent choice, sir. And for you, madam?

I would like the baked oysters and the seafood platter.

Very good, madam.

That seafood platter sounds good. Excuse me, what does the platter have?

It's a great combination of clams, scallops, mussels, calamari, and fillet of salmon and tuna. It comes with a side of butter sauce and french fries.

Very well, sir. Anything to drink?

Can we get a bottle of your house white wine, please?

All right, so seafood, we said, usually has the connotation of being a little bit pricey. Why do you think that is?

I think it's pricey because the best seafood doesn't come from seafood farms, it comes from people who go in boats and they collect this seafood in nets. And also, there are fewer and fewer places now in America where you can find this kind of food because some places have experienced overfishing. Too many people are trying to fish. And also some places just don't have the right climate for certain animals.

Right. So for example, in the United States, you do have well, the whole country is covered in the West Coast by the Pacific Ocean, the East Coast, you have the Atlantic. So, uh, obviously you do have some coast, but if you're in the middle of the United States, it's probably hard to get seafood, so I imagine it's very expensive.

It can be very, very expensive. So often times we get uh lake food. It's a different kind of fish, but we don't have lobsters. Um, but you'll find that in the the West, you get very good salmon because Alaska and in the Northwest is very famous for salmon from the Pacific. And in the East, it's very famous for lobster and crab, which are delicious.

Now, even though you have uh it's famous for lobster and crab, it's still relatively expensive compared to other dishes. Like, for example, I think a lobster, how much would a lobster dinner cost?

A lobster dinner could cost you 100, $150.

Right. And you're getting almost almost the same amount of meat as maybe having a steak that would be $20.

Yeah, less meat, I think. But we have more cows than we have lobsters. And also lobsters are famous for being pretty pretty expensive. It's a very fancy meal to have lobsters.

It is indeed. And it's uh it's really nice to be able to get these big prawns, these big shrimp or lobsters and and eat them without worrying about the price. But I'm curious in your country, do you have seafood and if so, what kind? Is it cheap? Is it expensive? Is it pricey? Uh let us know. Our website is englishpod.com.

All right, we'll see you guys there. Bye.

The English part audio review.

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