Thursday, January 29, 2015

Unhipster's Hangout: Mel's Fish Shack in South LA.

Last weekend, my daughter at USC wanted to have a late lunch with us. Pleasantly surprised, I was intending to treat her to a nice sit down place near USC to sample a Restaurant Week menu in Los Angeles. The place I wanted to try was Govind Armstrong's Post and Beam Restaurant, but by the time we got there, the hoity toity upscale place was closed: It was the hiatus between lunch and dinner!* Too bad for Govind. I didn't quite like the food he had at his previous restaurant Table 8 on Melrose and wanted to give his food another chance. Oh well, next time.

      *(Aside) I tell you, you'll never find these breaks in a self respecting Chinese restaurant.
        They are always open at all hours all the time, including Christmas, Thanksgiving and New
        Year!

My daughter used Yelp and found Mel's Fish Shack. She said it's highly rated, so we decided to give it a try.  Mel's is located in a god forsaken area on Jefferson Blvd. where only rundown shacks and warehouses seem to abound. The street was deserted. I kept telling my daughter that she is not allowed to come out here by herself at night because it seemed too dangerous. Well, I digress.



Me's Fish Shack is in a little shack covered by a bold mural. Inside, you can only sit at a counter that seats maybe 10 customers all together. When we got there, there were five other people at the counter: three African American old timers, and a Latino couple. Everyone seemed to be waiting patiently for their food. We were told to go to this little window to place our order first and then head back two steps to sit at the counter. Most of the items involved fried seafood. We ordered the fish wrap, fried sole, and fried red snapper, a Yelp recommended potato salad and cole slaw. The cook, a big African American guy in dreadlocks and Jamaican knit hat was behind the counter cooking in plain view.  He burned the tortilla for the African American lady's fish wrap, so he had to put another one on the grill. She had to remind him before it almost got burned again. He thanked her for the reminder. It was hilarious. Everyone seemed to take the mishaps and wait in good humor.


When our food finally came, I found my grilled cajun seasoned fish wrap very tasty. Our battered red snapper and sole were fried to perfection. Oddly, the fried fish dishes came with a slice of supermarket bread instead of tortilla or rice. Everything hit a spot for us, but it's also possible that we were famished by 3:30 in the afteroon. Mel's tartar sauce was delicious and unique, but when we asked the chef what's in the tartar sauce, he said that if he told us, he'd have to kill us! He did give us a hint: dill. I think it's got Worcester sauce and garlic in mayo as well.

Our three lunches came out to be around $30. Not too bad for fresh fish and a fun experience exploring a new neighborhood in LA.

Mel's Fish Shack
4524 West Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90016
(323) 732-6357

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