Barking Crab - BF&CR #2

The first review was a bit of a downer, but thankfully this one ends on a good note. Barking Crab is a great spot, located in the Seaport near the Courthouse and pretty much in view of the Boston Tea Part Museum, whose ships always make for a good view when you walk over the bridges over Fort Point channel. The restaurant has the classic "crab shack" vibe which usually makes for a good time.

Salt and vinegar are ready at the table when you sit down, usually a good tiding for seafood spots in my opinion. The fish is haddock and runs you $28. I prefer haddock but it often means a smaller piece of fish, which can be ok but for that price I would've wanted a larger filet or two pieces - let it be known I don't oppose multiple pieces of fish on the plate if they're well-made! - but it came out blazing hot and very crisp. I believe it's some kind of beer batter, which was quite substantial yet pretty thin as beer batters go. The batter was also faintly shellfish-scented, I assume because it's fried in the same oil as all the fried clams and oysters and so on. I actually don't mind this since I like fried shellfish, but it's something to be aware of. It's an overall heavy, very fry-forward piece of fish - again this is despite the thinness of the batter. This is also due to the thinness of the filet, which leads to a higher batter-to-fish ratio than on a thick filet. Quite nice if you want that sort of thing, and makes the beer taste much better. (They also gave me a random beer for no reason which I didn't pay for - not even another round of the one I had ordered, just a glass of some IPA after I'd drank about half of my first glass. I don't like IPAs but you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe they were trying to sweeten my review a little...)

The fish itself had a nice subtle and fresh taste, typical for haddock, and was quite juicy. (Good fish and chips is a pretty wet meal.) The fries were good, nothing particularly special but the flavor of the potato came through somehow without the same shellfish flavor that the batter had. Crispy and got pleasantly soggy after the piece of fish had been broken up, which is no bad thing.

All the accoutrements were there. Malt vinegar is available at the table when you sit down, as it should be. The tartar sauce was nothing special, a little thin in my opinion and lacking some piquancy, basically like mayonnaise with a little piece of gherkin or two swimming around. There was coleslaw.

Overall an absolutely decent platter, the standard which every seafood joint should hold itself to at minimum. Hot, crispy, fully-furnished. The tartar leaves something to be desired and its a bit expensive for what you get though. I think it's a solid 7/10.

Boston Sail Loft - The Fish and Chips Review #1

For the very first Fish and Chips Review, we have an excellent example of what I mean when I say the fish and chips situation here is bleak. This may very well be the worst piece(s) of fried fish I have ever eaten. 

Boston Sail Loft is widely reported to be the best seafood spot in Boston. Maybe these reviews were bought and paid for, maybe they were written by P-zombies masquerading as humans - or, to be fair, maybe they just weren't talking about the fish and chips. The other food may be very nice - the other dishes I had were alright - so I shouldn't be too harsh until I've gone back for more stuff. Anyways I digress. Here's the breakdown.

I believe the fish was cod. It tasted alright; frankly cod is not my favorite option for F&C but it is respectable as far as it goes and is quite traditional. The first warning sign to me was that the fish was cut into several small nuggets. I completely object to this as the ratio of batter to fish would be off even if the batter were very good. Unfortunately the coating on the fish was not only not batter but not even a well-executed version of what it was trying to be. Imagine shake-n-bake chicken breasts, cooked by a kid for the first time: soggy, thin, and rather bland - not a mote of salt on the entire plate. I suppose breadcrumbs could be used to make a fine fried fish, but this was not that. Zero points for the breading: in fact negative points for the atrocious execution of whatever this was supposed to be.

The fries were passable, certainly frozen but nothing special. Same goes for tartar sauce. Malt vinegar was not furnished by my server but I easily nabbed some from a nearby table. 

Overall a horrible experience - 3/10. The best thing I can say was that nothing seemed spoiled and all the elements were technically on the plate. Negative points for the breading fiasco and the fact that the fish was in pieces. (I guess they do this so that when a table orders a seafood platter it's easier to share - in that context the choice makes sense but not for fish and chips, and I will remind you that this is the F&C review.)

(The other thing this place is famous for is their chowder - in my opinion it was alright, lacking salt but otherwise inoffensive. I appreciate that they don't feel the need to be too unique or new-agey: the soup is thick, there are plenty of clams, and overall it's very warming. The dill is an interesting touch. - As a final positive, the rum punch is potable and they serve a hot toddy. Both plusses to me. I will reiterate that this is the fish and chips review.......more reviews forthcoming.)

The Fish and Chips Review: Preliminaries

Boston, for all its apparently British character, has a conspicuous dearth of good fish and chips. And this is totally unnecessary.

Now there are two aspects to this lack of good fish and chips: the first is that there aren't any "chippies," or in other words places which deal exclusively in fried fish and potatoes. These are ubiquitous in big cities in the UK (although they're of varying quality). In the US in general cheap casual spots are going to deal in something like pizza or "bowls", and neither of those kinds of places are liable to have any fish on the menu at all. Chicken tenders are the closest you really get, which are cheap and widely beloved, so there's no demand for fried fish. I suppose some restaurants will have fish sticks available but that's if you're lucky; usually you don't get any fried fish option!

The second aspect to the lack of good fish and chips in Boston is that the fish and chips we DO have usually aren't any good. Soggy, weird piles of "food." Frankly even good fish and chips is kind of a strange dish, food for the insensate, an overwhelming heap which acts kind of like cement or sand in the stomach. I'm pretty sure it's almost totally indigestible; great for soaking up a hangover though. Anyways I want to start a list of every fish and chips in Boston and find the good ones. My points of critique are the following:

Batter. Is it light, crispy, good-tasting, and generally well-made? Bonus points for beer in the batter. Is the oil which the fish was fried in clean-tasting, or does it have other flavors - burnt grease, other foods, etc - mixed into it? MAJOR negative points for a non-batter coating, ie breadcrumbs or cornflakes or whatever.

Fish. Is the fish fresh? Does it have a good texture? Is it cooked properly? Is the fillet well-sized or measly? Does it taste nice?

Chips/fries. I'll award bonus points for having actual chippy chips, big fat fries, instead of typical American fries, but it's a little silly to expect a restaurant to serve chipper chips to patrons who probably don't want them. Are they hot, crispy, not overly oily? Critical: are there enough of them? Too often you only get like a handful... Bonus points for freshly-cut fries.

Accoutrements. To me the indispensable condiments for F&C are malt vinegar, tartar sauce, and copious amounts of salt. If these are present then any plate gets a passing grade - but attention will be paid to the quality of the tartar sauce. I like a chunky, thicker kind, not runny or too plain. Tartar sauce is essentially mayonnaise, which on top of a bunch of fried food would be entirely redundant if not for the gherkins and shallots etc which it carries. Lemon is unessential, but very welcome. Bonus points for curry sauce.

In general I won't be awarding bonus points for particularly "well-flavored" F&C, with spices or the like in the batter or the fries or whatever, since I don't think that F&C is a dish that is improved by more flavors. The point is that it's rather plain on its own. But I'll make due note of those F&C's which are more highly-flavored than others.

I think these are the basic components of F&C, and other than minor aspects of taste I don't think anything here is too controversial. One last note about ratings - I'll be doing ratings out of 10, with 5–7 being essentially average (the minimum requirement for paying for food at a restaurant); between 0–5 means "not worth ordering," and 7–10 means outstanding. A 10/10 wouldn't necessarily mean that a plate is "the best fish and chips ever," I like the sticky toffee pudding guy's way of putting it: a 10/10 is "the one to beat." The purpose isn't really to find the best fish and chips in Boston but to ensure that high standards are being upheld all around. And, again, I don't think the above standards are really all that crazy.

My reviews will be forthcoming, especially over the summer I hope. I encourage everybody to engage in a similar pursuit and share their results, maybe even on their own blog.