Adventures In Lunching; or: Fish Fried In Leather

[Bertha Venation]

Today's cafeteria menu lists "Tilapia Fish & Chips." I thought to myself, how can you deep-fry tilapia? It's very tender and would just disintegrate.

Well, I found out how to deep-fry tilapia.

Dress it up in leather.

The batter was darker than on usual fish & chips, more the color of fried chicken, but it still looked good, so I got it. It came with fries and cole slaw, yum!

I didn't want to get my hands all greasy (I read while I eat), so when I started to eat, I went to pull a piece of fish off with my fork. Curiously, I couldn't pull at it. I held the fish with the knife and pulled. Nothin'. I sawed away at the naugahyde-encased thing. I couldn't even cut it! (Okay, sure, it was a plastic knife, but if it's possible to cut a steak with a plastic knife, you oughta be able to tackle fried batter, don't you think?) I finally did pick it up to bite off a piece, and I actually had to saw at it a little with my teeth.

I spent my lunch hour wrestling with this damned fish, not wanting to have to eat the batter. The fish itself - the fish that I could free, anyway - tasted like plain tilapia, which is pretty good. But getting it out was a hassle. The liquid from the cole slaw had soaked into the bottom of the second piece of fish, so it was easy to eat that one; I just pulled apart the breading.

I fought with my lunch for an hour, so now, not only am I not satisfied, I am exhausted.

I wrote to the cafeteria to tell them of my dismay.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. Oh my gosh!

And where was this tooth-wrenching experience?

[Bertha Venation]

2. the cafeteria here at work --

not open to the public, so don't worry ;)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

3. I wonder if the FDA cafe has problems like that...

Or are gov't agencies exempt from gov't regs?

[Kali]

4. that sounds pretty awful

maybe the batter sat around too long and then got fried at too low of temp.

BTW I have deep fried tilapia (with cornflakes, no less!) and it works fine

[Bertha Venation]

5. I wrote the cafeteria and got a response from the GM

Among his comments: "I tested the tilapia around 11:30 and found it to be very tender and fried to perfection." I replied that maybe it got tough while waiting around to be served when I got it at 1:30.

:shrug:

I'm getting a refund plus a free meal. :)