A Fish Bite

My wife and I enjoy going out to dinner at least once a week. When we lived in Orange County there was a great English pub called The Olde Ship just down the street from our home. The pub has the best fish and chips we have ever had: large pieces of fresh battered cod and steak chips. The batter is great and the fish is always fresh...and they have a great selection of beer and scotch!

When we moved to Bakersfield, we thought we'd never find a good fish and chips plate in town. To our surprise we've found two places with fairly decent fish and chips offerings: Fishlips and Mossman's. Fishlips is located downtown and has a pub atmosphere with live music on some nights; they've recently remodeled and the place looks great...the change of lighting would have been enough but they upgraded everything. Mossman's is located at Westchester Lanes, a bowling alley.

Both restaurants are similarly priced and both are about equal in terms of flavor and quality. Fishlips has a few different offerings like shrimp and chips, but Mossman's offers different sides if you'd like to have the fish but not the chips. We like both and rotate our visits. Our last visit was on Sunday at Mossman's.

We both ordered the same dish: the Old Timer's. Instead of chips they serve a great tossed salad with a house dressing. The salad is large and very good, so if you're not in the mood for a whole lot of fried food, this dish hits the spot. As usual, service was good, the drinks were cold and the food was prompt. The salad was fresh and cold. They serve a roll with the dish, but I rarely eat it. This time, I shared one with my wife...it was slightly warm, but very hard, not typical quality at Mossman's.

I had a heaping of battered cod chunks, maybe six pieces about 2 ounces each. Everything was going fine until I bit a small piece off one of the chunks...very chewy, rubbery. I figured since it was a small bit off the larger chunk that it didn't have enough meat so it over-cooked. Wrong! The whole chunk was rubbery. Something was very wrong with this piece, I couldn't even cut through it with my fork. No big deal, the plate was huge and I had plenty to eat...10 ounces out of 12 is fine.

However, I overheard another patron sitting nearby complain to the cook about the same thing. He saved his rubbery piece before the waitress took his plate so he could give it to the cook. The cook said he thought they received a bad batch of fish because they had several complaints recently. Well, I hope they get through that bad batch quickly because if I get another piece like that, I'll probably head to Fishlips before I order another bite of fish at Mossman's. Heck, I may even head to Orange County for a really good fish and chips plate!