Weird Fish

Having dinner with Bill reminded me of how I need more guy friends, friends who will get drinks with me on a Tuesday night, eat fried food dipped in a mayo-like sauce and not flinch, and get me home safely.

We started our night at Weird Fish, a tiny, new place on Mission at 18th that makes you notice that it serves sustainably raised fish and that, according to some internet research on my part but no real-world tasting, serves a good tempeh version of fish and chips.

The space is narrow and long, only seating about 20 or so. The walls are painted a pale blue and there are funky, nautically-themed nick-nacks hanging about. The care the owners took in the details of creating an inviting and unique space really show, especially in the design of the small menu (I wanted to stick one in my purse). Bill was happy to see the fancy bottles of beer displayed beyond the bar area in the back.

The menu is as eclectic as the space. There's a section for "Fried Food," a fish and chips section with meat and non-meat versions, a section for "Lonely Sandwiches," and a section at the bottom of the small menu reserved for the "Suspicious Fish Dish." I was intrigued.

We started with the fried food: fried green beans, fried pickled, and fried calamari. It turned out to be a lot of fried food (these weren't no small appetizers) and our table was quickly covered in fried goodness. The green beans were good, although I couldn't really tell that they were green beans. The green The fried pickles were a fantastic treat--crisp and salty on the outside but juicy and sour just underneath that batter. The calamari was the worst of our fried food trio. It was a little tough though well seasoned.

I couldn't resist ordering the Suspicious Fish Dish. That was the only description of what would be coming to me. And, once it arrived, it turned out to be poached trout with a cactus and caper sauce over a bed of quinoa and zucchini. It looked very healthy and had the taste of hippie, if hippie could be a flavor. It wasn't bad and it was probably what my body needed after all that fried food, but I wanted a burst of flavor not poached trout.

Bill, on the other hand, continued the fried food trend by ordering the fish and chips. He also had a large bottle of beer and I had an Anchor Steam. We finished it all off with a slice of lemon tart.

[Off the subject but supposedly relevant: Our hostess was a woman who used to come into 826 to drop off a young girl for tutoring but whose name I can't recall, and Mo and Janice turned up at Weird Fish too. Small world.]

Bill and I continued our Tuesday evening down the street at Bruno's, where I had two vodka tonics, and we impressed our waitress with our cocktail-napkin-rose skills. And, then we journeyed further down the street to Lazlo's. I should have learned my lesson earlier in the night from not choosing my dining options based on names, but I couldn't help myself and order the Incredible Lightness of Being, which turned out to be too sour and too tart. I ended the night with one of my old man favorites, a whiskey sour.

[Off the subject yet again but supposedly relevant as well: The man sitting next to me at the bar of Lazlo's was the Asian Man from Street Wars. He had on the whole get-up--mustache, hat, long black shirt with white cuffs--and had with him envelopes of what must have been the profiles of players. I asked him about his moustache, and his response was kinda dirty and not fit to type but involved his girlfriend. He, however, wouldn't divulge details of the game.]