Thursday, March 7, 2013

St. Andrews, Upper Arlington, A Reprise


First a big shout out to Maureen at ColumbusBestBlog  for telling people about our blog and bringing us lots of new visitors. I hope you all take a chance and explore your local Catholic Church’s offerings. Next week Z and I will be visiting St. Michael’s if you want to join us.

We are a family with teenagers. Because of this, our schedule is frequently entirely out of our control. I am sure that Z’s director had not considered the Lenten season when she scheduled opening night of the school play on a Friday during Lent. This seriously crimped our style when it came to selecting our fish fry location. We were limited based on needing to have Z at her school by 6 pm for the evening performance of “Our Town”. Taking this into consideration we decided to revisit a previous location that is right down to the street from her school with the added benefit that they started serving dinner at 4:30.

It was off to St. Andrews in Upper Arlington. Our last visit to St. Andrews was two years ago so it was about time we checked to see if they had made any changes.

Because we were constrained for time we were part of the early bird crowd. And yes, that does mean what you think it means. My little family and what seemed like the entire congregation’s senior citizens. We were one man down as T was stuck at home waiting for a repairman to finish his job. He was kind enough to review the fish offerings at Giant Eagle that night and will post that soon.

The three of us easily found parking due to the early hour, but we found that St. Andrew’s had still not marked entrance to the fish fry very well. Fortunately, for us there were other people making their way in, so we could follow behind. Once you were in the door, menus were clearly posted with lots of different options. Fish dinners both baked and fried, $9.00 for dine in and $8.00 for takeaway (takeaway does not include drinks or dessert) There is also an adult mac and cheese dinner and a pizza dinner for $8.00, dine in, and $7.00, takeaway. Children’s dinners are $4.00 and the nice lady who took our money and order was nice enough to ask my kids if either of them was under 12. That received a derisive look from them and left me wondering if she needed her prescription for her glasses checked.

The sides offered by St. Andrew’s are baked potato, French fries or a sweet potato, green beans, coleslaw or salad and a dinner roll, dessert and a drink. 

We all tried the fried fish and the lady in the serving line raved about the green beans (she was right!)  and coleslaw.  F and I had sweet potato and Z had fries.

There was a huge offering of condiments including hot sauce! I mention this because I had never seen it until we went to St. Stephen’s two weeks ago and here it was again.  They also get bonus points for little cups of brown sugar for the sweet potato.

Once we had our food we made our way into the dining area and joined a table with an elderly couple. This was a lovely bonus and we had a delightful conversation with them over dinner. The three of us learned a lot about the area and the local catholic schools.

The fish was very good and plentiful. I’m not sure if it is because we ate early but Z and I were unable to finish our fish that night. The sweet potato was very good and I finished mine off. F remembered that he really doesn't like sweet potato and switched with his sister. She loved it and F said the fries were good.

The slaw was not great, rather watery tasting. The green beans were very good, though. Good firm texture and flavor; no memories of high school there.

F had a cupcake for dessert and said it was good while Z and I, gave dessert a pass for the evening.

We had an enjoyable meal, both in food and company. If they could make one major change they would have better signage on the outside. Definitely worth the trip and make sure you look for a table with other people so you can make new friends. 

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the shout out from your biggest fan. I have tried to comment before and never been able. Three weeks late and I am too hungry to read more. Trying to publish!!!!

    ReplyDelete