Had it up to the gills with Florida fish? A new Largo spot offers the Great Lakes school of thought.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published February 5, 2004
[Times photo: Carrie Pratt]
A specialty at the Great Lakes Fish House, the northern lake perch fish fry dinner, comes with a choice of mixed vegetables, baked potato, french fries, cole slaw or salad, and a bread basket, for $12.95.
If you're looking for fish besides salmon, grouper and mahi on our menus, I've finally found some. It's not the catch I expected since I was thinking along the lines of the mullet, amberjack, wahoo or hogfish.
Plenty of folks will be just as delighted with this catch: perch, bluegill, walleye and whitefish. The clue should have been in the maps and nautical charts on the walls, which unlike those that decorate most fish houses here, show water almost completely surrounded by land. These are called lakes, the Great Lakes that we learned about in geography class years ago.
Or maybe I should have been tipped off by the appetizers of fried kielbasa and mac 'n' cheese wedges (wicked stuff but we'll let you have them once in a while).
These are the foods and the freshwater fish of Michigan. Just as huge flocks of snowbirds have arrived, their favorite fish have migrated to Florida, too. The nesting ground here is the Great Lakes Fish House, a little piece of Michigan that has just opened in Largo.
Granted, Midwesterners have long felt at home in Pinellas County, but Great Lakes is the first place to try to capture the no-frills, no-sushi heartland as a concept.
And Michiganders Wally Ogrodowski and Rick Bonin did their best to re-create the old knotty-pine fish house their compatriots left behind on the shores of those cold, deep waters with everything save the stiff winds.
Forget palm trees. This place has lodge poles of white birch and a foot-thick log for the mantle. The colors are plain and natural, blond woods instead of tropical flowers. The aquariums are connected by a waterfall. And the prints on the wall are rich with a different history: photos of grand three-deck lake steamers and maps of shipwrecks in each lake.
Of course, the big freighter Edmund Fitzgerald (Nov. 10, 1975, off Whitefish Point, all 29 aboard lost) has the position of honor over the fireplace. Now if Disney had rebuilt Michigan in Largo, imagineers might have frozen the pond outside and installed animatronic ice fisherman. Still, this is a substantial transformation of an old Shoney's and a welcome investment in a bleak chunk of Missouri Avenue.
The Great Lakes theme works the same in food, straightforward and hearty, plain but with distinct regional identity and pride. If your Jimmy Buffett-addled brain thinks that only Florida knows fish, remember there's a part of the world where fisher folk are so avid they are fishing today, through holes poked in the ice 1,000 miles north. Why? Because good taste runs deep in very cold water.
This is not the fish sticks of too many school lunches and Friday suppers, but the real skin-on fish, panfish and big lunkers, caught and eaten on summer vacations by the lake. And yes, eaten with fries and beer at fish fries at the lodge. Those pleasures are vanishing from some parts of the lakes, so I'm glad we get a sample.
The most fun is a bluegill fry, especially for kids and those who like their fish on the mild side. They'll get a dozen little fillets barely 3 inches long of tender white flesh in crisp crust. These are too tame for me, although I can imagine them fresh out of a skillet in a lakeside cottage.
Me, I have bigger fish to fry - or grill or blacken, such as the walleye or the wild king (chinook) salmon from the lakes. The best for me was a long, thick side of walleye from Lake Superior, solid flakes of moist, rich meat and flavor that seasoning salt can't hide. I ran into a few very small bones and a scale or two. I mention that not as a warning but as welcome confirmation that these fish have not been homogenized.
Likewise, the whitefish, which many say is the finest in the lakes, has the lush richness of salmon. And at this fish house it's a hefty fillet with a flavor that's somewhere between mullet and wahoo, firm white, fatty flesh. There are frog legs, shrimp, Brit-style fish and chips, steaks and burgers, but the most appealing lunch to me would be a walleye sub.
All can be served with sides beloved north and south: french fries and cole slaw. Fries are the best, the extra crunchy sort that seem to be double-fried.
The rest of the trimmings are the bland stuff of Garrison Keillor jokes; this is not a cuisine known for vegetables. The cole slaw is sweet and soggy, the broccoli, carrots and cauliflower would be better off hidden in pot pie or other hot dish. Tartar sauce was too close to mayo and lacked kick.
Bread is just that, although the basket includes rye and pumpernickel as well as white bread; the latter is a staple of traditional diets, but I'd compensate by using a rye with more punch.
For dessert I had to try a Michigan take on key lime pie. It was the right color and not too sweet until it was drizzled with raspberry sauce. Ouch.
Well, that was expected. What's more impressive is on the center of the plate, a reminder that all fish do not taste the same (or unfishy) and that every region has its delicacies. It's most crucial that we preserve them, so I won't demand that Great Lakes also bring us sturgeon, smallmouth bass and northern pike, too.
But I'm glad they're sharing some walleye and whitefish. There are indeed many fish in the seas, including the inland ones.
Great Lakes Fish House
776 N Missouri Ave., Largo
(727) 518-1900
Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
Reservations: Accepted for parties of six or more
Details: Most credit cards accepted; full bar; smoking outdoors only; wheelchair accessible.
