Grilled/Baked whole fish

Quarantining for 4 weeks now, I'm start to day-dream of what I missed most about eating out. One of the things I missed eating in restaurants were the grilled whole fishes. Last year, I discovered a few restaurants that made fabulous whole fishes - some South American, some seafood specialty, some Mediterranean. All are so yummy, and seems.. almost, kind of simple? But I was more naive then, I assumed maybe there's a really complicated cooking method or cooking gear that the restos needed.. or some crazy weird long process... After all, these dishes sometimes go for 30-40.. to 100 dollars a dish!! But my curiosity got the better of me and boy am I glad I looked this up. Aside from feeling kind of ripped off now, I'm happy to report, it was not at all hard to do and oh so delicious. I am never gonna have to pay premium for this dish again. Don't believe me? Hear me out and I encourage you to try it too!

What you need:
- a whole fish (typically get sea bass, branzino, or red snapper) with head and tail. There are the common fishes I get in a restaurant, the meat is often flaky, white, and light. There are often just a few bones, not too many - so it's easy to eat without poking your throat out. My fish, for 2 people was about 600g, 12 dollars.
- 1 lemon
- 4 garlic cloves
- cooking oil
- rosemary, salt and pepper
- Side dish: I made roasted sweet potatoes (1 large), 3 small carrots, and 3 small onions. You can choose your own favorite roasted veggies. Roasting vegetables is great with this fish dish: not only it compliments it so well, and it's also easy peasey - hello you are already baking the fish, why not bake the veggie too.

Recipe:
- Clean your fish: I got a sea bass, they have scales and fins. My local grocery store was nice enough to de-gut and de-scale most of the fish. Often stores will do that for you so it's less work when you take the fish home. I only had to pick out a few scales from the hard to clean spots, like near the gills, belly, tail and etc. But over all, just give the fish a good wash under water, pat dry with paper towel and leave it aside.
- veggie prep: Cut up your vegetables to relatively the same size so they roast evenly. toss them into a bowl with 2 tsp of cooking oil, 1/2 tsp of rosemary, salt and pepper. throw into baking pan and roast at 425 F for 20 min.
- While your vegetables are roasting, season the fish. rub 1 tsp of oil on the sides and inside of the fish. Slide the lemon and garlic. stuff half of the lemon slices into the belly of the fish, and all the garlic slices. season generously with salt and pepper inside and a dash of rosemary. Now season the out side of the fish with lot of salt and pepper, and garlic powder. Mmm-mm.
-  Bake fish in oven 425 F for 30 min. Take the vegetables out and turn them a bit to cook evenly and continue baking. Turn on boiler on high for the last 2 min on the fish, and serve while hot with your remainder half of lemon wedges to squish the juice on top.

Oh my gawd fam, I'm not kidding this dish is as good as the 4 star restaurants! Oh dare I say it? Even better!! So all your prep time was about 30 min and idling for another 30. And the ingredients are pretty simple. Uh... for a dish like this, hella worth it!

Notes:
- Other side dishes that go well with the fish: fingerling potatoes, brocolini, asparagus. These things I've tried while order the whole fish dish from restaurants like a sucker. But well.. they went well with the fish.. so i guess bonus points there.
- Make this dish the same day as when you buy the fish. If you bought fish before, or any seafood in that matter, try to eat them the same day for max freshness. True you don't know how long the fish has been with the fish counter (hopefully not too many days), but doesn't help you have it in your fridge for another week. Old rotten fishy smell has to be one of the worst smells on earth. Stear clear the smell, cook your fish today.
- Heads and fins and skin: I leave the skin on and I eat it, because it's full of good fat, deliciously crispy when roasted. I sometimes eat the fin and tails as they are crispy too. Head? Not so much. I have attempted to eat the brain or eye ball in the past - too much work and not enough reward. Also - texture wise it's not all that great. If you'd like to try for yourself, be my guest.