♪ Last night, she said ♪
Sorry about the seventeen year overdue Strokes reference.
Last night, the girlfriend comes to pick me up to grab dinner and go watch a couple movies over at her place. She liked Family Plot (late color era Hitchcock), she was glued to her phone for Devil Times Five (it was awful), and we were dissimilarly simultaneously captivated and repulsed by Blood For Dracula, which somebody, I forget who, told me was a horror sex comedy (it’s a lot closer to a body horror flick with three jokes). Thankfully, we ate before that.
She’d been wanting to try this place, Mac’s Fish & Chips, down on 54th and Garfield for a few years and also knew that I had been suffering through one of my occasional, out-of-the-blue fast food cravings, this time being Long John Silver’s. (Fucking hushpuppies, boy, tell you what.)
We get to the joint and it is tiny-ish. Like Tiny Diner* - best Reuben in Minneapolis, there** - should actually give up the “Tiny” part, this place is so tiny. GF asks me if we should eat in or get it to go. I say fuck it, let’s eat in.
We get inside and the menu is super easy to decipher. You pick a size: Solo - fish plank, no chips***; Half - fish plank, small chips, slaw; Classic - two planks, large chips, slaw.
Then you pick your fish. Halibut ($$$), walleye ($$), or cod ($), there’s also the option for shrimp, clams, or chicken. You can upgrade to a sandwich for 50¢, you can get sides like poutine, and they refer to beer on the menu as brewskis which would normally annoy me but didn’t bother me at all for some reason, much like how Janis is the only person who can call me Charles without making it sound pretentious and annoying the shit out of me.
Being that I’m not made of money, I ordered a classic cod, GF gets a half cod and a fountain drink. On the communal table we sat at were sea salt grinders, Frank’s Red Hot, and Mac’s own rosemary malt vinegar. That was a nice twist; the rosemary added rounder, savory notes to the malt vinegar that would play nice with the fish.
In dispensers on the counter were catsup (I think Heinz 57, don’t recall), Mac’s tartar sauce, and Mac’s lime jalapeño tartar sauce. The regular tartar sauce was good but not my preferred style. I like it a little tangier, a little more dill- and mustard-hued. This was a sweeter variety but nothing I would turn my nose up at. Hell, I ate three little cups of it. The lime jalapeño variety was dull reddish in color and offered a little kick but nothing over the top. This isn’t an episode of Hot Ones. It was a nice variation on tartar sauce, I worked through a cup of that.
Enough about the condiments.
Our order came out and just the size of it told me the following:
1: I am completely OK with what I spent on this.
2: Motherfucker, you’re about to get the itis.
Also, everything in our baskets was cooked fresh. The fish was scalding hot to the touch and, upon pulling one plank apart into smaller pieces to accelerate cooling, I was hit in the face with steam. I pointed this out to GF. I would not have gotten still-steaming fish from Long John Silver’s. (But the hushpuppies, though.)
I worked on the chips for a little while. They were golden brown, almost a tea shade of brown in some spots, skin-on, shoe-stringed, and perfectly salted with visible sea salt crystals adhering to them.
The fish, when it had cooled enough for me to handle it - our, I don’t know, guy? He ran register and was serving, so he was playing a dual role. ANYway, our guy brought us some plasticware but we didn’t use them, we both ate with our hands. I didn’t pay attention to how GF handled her platter but I squeezed my lemon wedge all over the fish and doused the planks with the rosemary malt vinegar. I dipped a piece of plank into the tartar sauce and shoved it in my mouth.
It was good. Real good. I think I might have said three times last night, at the table, that this place was legit. The breading was perfectly seasoned as well and was flaky but stayed affixed to the fish filets; only once did a piece of breading come away from the meat in my tartar sauce cup. The cod was cooked through, as white and as boneless as a ghost. Like most fish, however, it tasted like fish so I can’t really report back on that flavor. You ever have fish? You know what fish tastes like. Salmon tastes different because it’s a red meat fish, smoked catfish tastes different but because it’s smoked. Cod is a white fish. It tastes like fish. There was a minute when McDonald’s was advertising using halibut to make their Filet-O-Fish, remember that? It was only like two or three years ago. White fish. Didn’t make the Filet-O-Fish taste any different. Or maybe my palette is blunt to the nuances in white fish flavors. After all, I was hungry for Long John Silver’s (because those hushpuppies, goddamn) and my GF, who seems to tolerate most of my inane nonsense was the one who gently said, “Honey, you’re a dolt and we need to get you some better fish.”
She didn’t say it like that but she totally said it like that.
Anyway, white fish requires tartar sauce is what I’m getting at.
I enjoyed our meal, I kind of even wanted to order a half cod to go, I even wanted to go to breakfast there this morning (and, believe me, we paid exactly the same for our breakfast this morning as we did for our fish last night but were left kind of meh by our breakfast) but, as I predicted, I got the itis and I had to tap out with only a few nuggets of chips left in the bottom of the basket.
Oh and here’s the real shit: Somebody at Mac’s got a hold of my mom’s coleslaw recipe. I swear, this coleslaw tastes exactly like my mom’s: Cabbage, carrot, don’t overdo it on the mayo, salt and pepper, done. GF, not being a fan of coleslaw, gave me hers so I was able to eat my mom’s coleslaw twice. That was a thing.
After we left, I looked up Mac’s and they’ve got two St. Paul locations, one on Snelling and one on Larpenteur. So, three locations, you’ve got options.
Sometimes I vouch, other times I recommend. I recommend you go to Mac’s and order with your gut and not your eyes. GF made the smart call and got the half cod and I say don’t be like me, be like GF. Speaking as a cyclist who has to watch how much deep fried food - and let’s be honest, this is deep fried food - he eats in distant locations, I’m putting the smart money on getting a half cod (under $7), dining in, and taking advantage of their tartar sauces and their rosemary malt vinegar - it really is a wonderful vinegar.
The basket came with exactly one dill pickle slice, though. I picked it up and thought, “Th'fuck am I supposed to do with this? Put it on something?” I just ate it.
They also have a small variety of salt water taffy that’s 95¢/oz.
Sorry about the seventeen year overdue Strokes reference.
Last night, the girlfriend comes to pick me up to grab dinner and go watch a couple movies over at her place. She liked Family Plot (late color era Hitchcock), she was glued to her phone for Devil Times Five (it was awful), and we were dissimilarly simultaneously captivated and repulsed by Blood For Dracula, which somebody, I forget who, told me was a horror sex comedy (it’s a lot closer to a body horror flick with three jokes). Thankfully, we ate before that.
She’d been wanting to try this place, Mac’s Fish & Chips, down on 54th and Garfield for a few years and also knew that I had been suffering through one of my occasional, out-of-the-blue fast food cravings, this time being Long John Silver’s. (Fucking hushpuppies, boy, tell you what.)
We get to the joint and it is tiny-ish. Like Tiny Diner* - best Reuben in Minneapolis, there** - should actually give up the “Tiny” part, this place is so tiny. GF asks me if we should eat in or get it to go. I say fuck it, let’s eat in.
We get inside and the menu is super easy to decipher. You pick a size: Solo - fish plank, no chips***; Half - fish plank, small chips, slaw; Classic - two planks, large chips, slaw.
Then you pick your fish. Halibut ($$$), walleye ($$), or cod ($), there’s also the option for shrimp, clams, or chicken. You can upgrade to a sandwich for 50¢, you can get sides like poutine, and they refer to beer on the menu as brewskis which would normally annoy me but didn’t bother me at all for some reason, much like how Janis is the only person who can call me Charles without making it sound pretentious and annoying the shit out of me.
Being that I’m not made of money, I ordered a classic cod, GF gets a half cod and a fountain drink. On the communal table we sat at were sea salt grinders, Frank’s Red Hot, and Mac’s own rosemary malt vinegar. That was a nice twist; the rosemary added rounder, savory notes to the malt vinegar that would play nice with the fish.
In dispensers on the counter were catsup (I think Heinz 57, don’t recall), Mac’s tartar sauce, and Mac’s lime jalapeño tartar sauce. The regular tartar sauce was good but not my preferred style. I like it a little tangier, a little more dill- and mustard-hued. This was a sweeter variety but nothing I would turn my nose up at. Hell, I ate three little cups of it. The lime jalapeño variety was dull reddish in color and offered a little kick but nothing over the top. This isn’t an episode of Hot Ones. It was a nice variation on tartar sauce, I worked through a cup of that.
Enough about the condiments.
Our order came out and just the size of it told me the following:
1: I am completely OK with what I spent on this.
2: Motherfucker, you’re about to get the itis.
Also, everything in our baskets was cooked fresh. The fish was scalding hot to the touch and, upon pulling one plank apart into smaller pieces to accelerate cooling, I was hit in the face with steam. I pointed this out to GF. I would not have gotten still-steaming fish from Long John Silver’s. (But the hushpuppies, though.)
I worked on the chips for a little while. They were golden brown, almost a tea shade of brown in some spots, skin-on, shoe-stringed, and perfectly salted with visible sea salt crystals adhering to them.
The fish, when it had cooled enough for me to handle it - our, I don’t know, guy? He ran register and was serving, so he was playing a dual role. ANYway, our guy brought us some plasticware but we didn’t use them, we both ate with our hands. I didn’t pay attention to how GF handled her platter but I squeezed my lemon wedge all over the fish and doused the planks with the rosemary malt vinegar. I dipped a piece of plank into the tartar sauce and shoved it in my mouth.
It was good. Real good. I think I might have said three times last night, at the table, that this place was legit. The breading was perfectly seasoned as well and was flaky but stayed affixed to the fish filets; only once did a piece of breading come away from the meat in my tartar sauce cup. The cod was cooked through, as white and as boneless as a ghost. Like most fish, however, it tasted like fish so I can’t really report back on that flavor. You ever have fish? You know what fish tastes like. Salmon tastes different because it’s a red meat fish, smoked catfish tastes different but because it’s smoked. Cod is a white fish. It tastes like fish. There was a minute when McDonald’s was advertising using halibut to make their Filet-O-Fish, remember that? It was only like two or three years ago. White fish. Didn’t make the Filet-O-Fish taste any different. Or maybe my palette is blunt to the nuances in white fish flavors. After all, I was hungry for Long John Silver’s (because those hushpuppies, goddamn) and my GF, who seems to tolerate most of my inane nonsense was the one who gently said, “Honey, you’re a dolt and we need to get you some better fish.”
She didn’t say it like that but she totally said it like that.
Anyway, white fish requires tartar sauce is what I’m getting at.
I enjoyed our meal, I kind of even wanted to order a half cod to go, I even wanted to go to breakfast there this morning (and, believe me, we paid exactly the same for our breakfast this morning as we did for our fish last night but were left kind of meh by our breakfast) but, as I predicted, I got the itis and I had to tap out with only a few nuggets of chips left in the bottom of the basket.
Oh and here’s the real shit: Somebody at Mac’s got a hold of my mom’s coleslaw recipe. I swear, this coleslaw tastes exactly like my mom’s: Cabbage, carrot, don’t overdo it on the mayo, salt and pepper, done. GF, not being a fan of coleslaw, gave me hers so I was able to eat my mom’s coleslaw twice. That was a thing.
After we left, I looked up Mac’s and they’ve got two St. Paul locations, one on Snelling and one on Larpenteur. So, three locations, you’ve got options.
Sometimes I vouch, other times I recommend. I recommend you go to Mac’s and order with your gut and not your eyes. GF made the smart call and got the half cod and I say don’t be like me, be like GF. Speaking as a cyclist who has to watch how much deep fried food - and let’s be honest, this is deep fried food - he eats in distant locations, I’m putting the smart money on getting a half cod (under $7), dining in, and taking advantage of their tartar sauces and their rosemary malt vinegar - it really is a wonderful vinegar.
The basket came with exactly one dill pickle slice, though. I picked it up and thought, “Th'fuck am I supposed to do with this? Put it on something?” I just ate it.
They also have a small variety of salt water taffy that’s 95¢/oz.
* Breakfast there this morning? Not up to par with their usual high standards.
** Best Reuben in all of Twin Cities goes to Cecil’s in St. Paul, though.
*** Fries but you get it.
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