On this, the second-to-last Friday of lent (and the last one where you can eat a proper meal), we decided it was high time to check out one of the many fish fries available to us in the Twin Cities. Since it was our first and last for the year we decided to go with the best and headed straight for the Church of St. Albert the Great in Longfellow. We were greeted by the most welcoming of open doors:

After descending a short staircase we were plunged into considerably more insanity:

This is a very popular fish fry! For how crowded it was (and it was extremely crowded) the people at St. Albert’s did an awesome job keeping the line moving and getting everybody fed. It’s obvious they’ve done this before. With two serving lines for added speed it was a matter of ten minutes until we had paid our ten dollars a head and loaded our plates up with fish and starches. Finding four seats together in the room pictured above seemed unlikely, so unfortunately we missed Fr. Joe Gillespie’s lively announcements throughout dinner as we headed up to the gym. But there was bingo!

There is obviously an art here to piling up your plate, and from what I saw some people have refined this art to a far greater extent than I. The food was great, a perfect example of its kind. The fish was fried Alaskan Pollack which was mild and meaty and extra delicious when slathered with copious amounts of tartar sauce. There was also some sort of baked fish, but I was here for a fish fry, damnit. What really shined about this meal was the sides:  the meatless spaghetti sauce managed to be pretty meaty tasting and the cole slaw, which gave me and my dining companions some pause for appearing to be drenched in mayo, ended up being very light and tangy. I wished I had gotten a (much) bigger pile. The low point for the sides was the mashed potatoes; not the worst mashed potatoes I have ever had but they tasted distinctly reconstituted. But that is really a minor quibble in the face of the great food and the extremely friendly and welcoming people serving it. St Albert’s, I’ll see you next lent!