Saturday, April 16, 2011

Fish

On Friday I tweeted about fish:

Fish on Fridays reminds me of all-you-can-eat fish places w/my Dad & him always angry because they never served the fish fast enough for himless than a minute ago via HootSuite Favorite Retweet Reply



There is nothing like a fish sandwich from Pittsburgh, and my childhood growing up there involved lots and lots of them.


But when I was quite young, I remember Ponderosa had all-you-can eat fish on Friday night during lent. I remember my Dad talking about it for weeks before we actually got to go, because people had told him about it: how there were servers walking around the dining room with huge, overflowing platters of fried fish, dishing it out to everyone as fast as you could eat it. There was a great build-up for the Friday we finally went. Of course the place was packed, and despite their best efforts the staff just couldn't serve the fish quickly enough to make my Dad happy. He left totally disgusted and never set foot in a Ponderosa again. I don't think I ever did either.

An all-you-can-eat experience that he enjoyed was at Ground Round here on the Eastern side of the state. The waitress figured out quickly that it was going to require a lot of fish, and just left the whole platter that she was serving the dining room on our table and my Dad was overjoyed. That experience alone took him back to Ground Round a few times, and those few NON all-you-can-eat trips probably paid for the money they lost on the fish. Probably.


(Fridays during lent are nice because there are so many more food options available when you go out. Why can't more restaurants have that many non-red meat, non-chicken, seafood and vegetarian specials all the time?)