As we mentioned last Friday, fried fish at the end of each week in Lent has become a stress event. Last Friday, aware that orders were being taken for Ralph’s on The Park starting at 9 am, panic set in immediately when I realized it was already 9:36. When we called to check later to see if the order was in, we were informed that we missed it, so 9:36 was indeed already too late to get an order in. I can only think of the saying “the gods do not will it” whenever I want to order this gourmet fish plate. But that left us with only twenty or so other choices for fried fish that evening, as evidenced by our own list. We settled on three from our list. And I did some of my own driving for a change. After recording an extra-long podcast featuring three very interesting callers, Tom and I set out on our own to score two of the three designated plates. Our usual driver, ML would get the south shore version.
We called to order a small plate at Zea, and were informed that it would be 45 minutes! When we arrived in the double car line, it was still a four car wait in each line. This was our first experience in the pick-up lines. Very interesting. Servers bearing gloves rush to each car and load large bags into the back seats. I was a little embarrassed by our singular serving plate with two sides. We did Zea because it was wild-caught Des Allemands, which is not easy to find. The other plate was from Oxlot 9, one of our favorites on the north shore, and the picture from Friday's post says it all. This seemed wild-caught and came white remoulade sauce and macaroni and cheese that was made with my favorite noodle, Pipe Rigate (that’s one of the hip mac’n’cheese tubes.) And we got the collard greens that we love so well here.
Catfish Plate at Oxlot 9
Picking up at Brown Butter at about the same time, ML bought another single fish plate, this one of fusion flavors, taking a global approach to our favored local tradition. Curried ketchup and minty pea mash flanked oddly-battered thin fish, accompanied by very large Fresno chile hush puppies. There were about six or eight little tubs of various condiments, the best of these was a crab boil tartar sauce.
Catfish Plate at Brown Butter
The vote was unanimous - the best of this bunch was Zea with its frozen french fries, good snow peas and delicious tartar sauce. The fish was small, so delicate as to be almost sweet, cornmeal- battered, greaseless, and golden brown.
Catfish Plate at Zea
The best french fries of the lot came with the Brown Butter plate. These were fresh-cut and good, as the fries at Brown Butter always are. And, frankly, who doesn't love fresh-cut fries? But this plate as a whole came in a distant third. The coleslaw was a little odd with its bits of nuts. The homemade pickles were quite good, which says a lot because I usually always prefer dill pickles from a jar to chef-made. Minty pea salad and curried ketchup are fine in their own right, but remoulade sauce is better with cornmeal fried catfish. And cornmeal catfish is still king in our book. We couldn’t tell what these amorphous pieces had as a coating, but it was too thick, too hard, and almost yellow. Peculiar. Didn’t taste bad. Or good. Soapbox time: I would not expect cornmeal catfish and remoulade in a pub in Britain, and would be disappointed if I got it. Why go to Britain? There, I want fish and chips with their special coating and method of frying and thick potatoes. Here, I want the local version.
Last week we were in such a rush to be part of the Friday fish fry the overwhelming choices drove us to a French Quarter bar called St. Lawrence. We had a very nice seafood plate from there for under $20. It was another cornmeal fried catfish with shrimp in quite a generous portion, and also very nice hand-cut fries. The week before was a flour-dusted catfish and fries from Abita Roasters in Covington. Nothing special, but it hit the spot for the end of a week of Lent.
There is still one more week to be part of this rat race. We’ve been shut out of the gourmet versions each time. We did just fine last Friday, proving that an A-list restaurant version of a Friday fish fry is not essential. But the intense competition to get one of these gourmet plates sure made it a lot of fun.
What will we all do for excitement when Friday, April 17th becomes just another Friday? In the Twilight Zone, of course.
