Fish Frydays 2013 #1: Our Lady of Providence

It’s a little hard to believe that we are in Fish Fry season yet again. This is my fourth year blogging about fish frys as well.

First off, let me apologize for not having a review last week. I’m finding a surprising amount of people are growing to enjoy and rely on these reviews, so again, I am sorry, but last Friday was my anniversary and the in-laws had our daughter and to top that off, one of my best friends returned from his deployment in Afghanistan and we were celebrating that, so something had to go. It’s nothing personal Fish Fry, but you just got squeezed out because of all the stuff going on that particular day, but we’re back and better than ever!

To kick off our blogging tour, I started texting back and forth as to where we were going, but I kept getting shot down with “we’ve already been there.” When I solicited opinions on where we should go, the most common answers I get are a fish fry in the far flung suburbs or St. Cecelia. To be clear, we did St. Cecelia in the first  year our clan, back when the wife and I were not yet the wife and I, on our first fish fry tour. I understand that they put a great deal of effort into their Mexican foods, but I want fried fish, and theirs was boxed. So, I don’t want to return, but lots of people like it and that’s awesome.

This time around, we chose Our Lady of Providence, 8866 Pardee Rd, Crestwood, MO. As we were driving down, I realized that we had attended a wedding there many years ago. It was a nice and uplifting wedding, perhaps a good omen?

I partially chose this place because children under five eat free our two year old can put back some food. I’m beginning to wonder how we’re going to afford car payments when we gotta feed little Scrumbles, who often times out eats me, but she’s not watching her waistline. I was proud of my girl because she didn’t want pizza, her favorite food, because she wanted fisheat free and our two year old can sometimes out eat me!

It’s a little hard getting to the large parking lot if you enter via the fish fry and school, so I’m going to recommend that you enter in through the church and head down to

the back. The large parking lot is connected to both edifices. After parking and going in by where they are frying the fish, you head down the hallway, make sure you choose your correct line takeout is straight away and eat in is on the far side.

Dinner.

As you can see, when we arrived there was a pretty good line ahead of us when we arrived, but we waited no more than twenty minutes. They use the better system of paying before you get your food. Too many times, Fish Frys have you pay after you’ve picked up your food, and that really just slows down the process. Separating the two parts of the process makes the waiting go far quicker.

For $8.50 and adult gets two pieces of fish, or a piece of fish an four frogs legs, and two sides and drinks are extra. This $8.50 gets you a mountain of food.

I chose to get a piece of cod and a round of catfish nuggets. For my sides, I chose fries (natrually) along with mac and cheese, someone on twitter was asking me about who had the best mac and cheese so, I became a bit curious as I’ve never had anyone ask me about a specific side dish before, I’m going to begin checking out this particular side dish in order to have an answer to that particular question.

My beverage.

For my beverage, I chose Mountain Dew. I have not given up beer, but they were not selling beer. I must confess that I was disappointed in the lack of beers. Even if it’s a terrible pee water lager, I want to have beer with my fish. I mentioned this on twitter again, like I did last year, and I was again amused by the responses:

@13blog No beer at a fish fry? How un-catholic.

@13blog Go to St. Cecilia’s Mexican Fish Fry. They serve beer.

@13blog I thought they all did. I grew up at one with a keg tap on the walk in.

Taco Bar.

There was an interesting little twist in how you can have your fish here. They had a taco serving bar set up if you’d prefer to eat your fish Mexican style. I have to say that I regretted not taking advantage of this, but hey hey what can I do?

As for the meal itself, the fish was excellent. Both the catfish nuggets and the piece of fried cod where both very, very good. My daughter agreed with me wholeheartedly here. She at every scrap of fish that was placed in front of her!

The mac and cheese was among the best mac and cheese I have ever eaten. The fries, though they were the high school cafeteria style fries were also quite good, once you scrape some of that salt off of them.  Aside from the mac’n’cheese, that was a motif of theirs, they did use a bit too much salt. Tuck t hat back a bit, and they’ve got some of the best fried fish I’ve had in some time.

If you don’t mind the lack of beer, check them out, but for fun. Let’s have a poll; in the comments, please answer the following question:

Should lenten fish frys serve beer as a requirement?