Catfish City

The first reviewer has it out for the restaurant, and in my opinion could have never eaten there. If you are looking for good food, I mean well prepared south side of Chicago fried anything. Catfish city is the place! The fact that the first reviewer did not like the fact that the french fries were on the bottom of the fish, shows he or she has never eaten at a real chicago chicken place. Some of the things on thier menu even trump Harolds… yes Harolds!

It takes a lot of factors to lead up to me giving a business a one-​star review, but this place falls into all of the pitfalls and inevitably deserves its lousy rating.
For starters, this is a house. The chain-​link fence outside, steep rounded stairs leading to what was once a screen-​door but is now covered with «Southside bars» for protection? The tile floor that reminds me of crappy linoleum-​type tiling in my own apartment? The fact that it looks like a wall was built with some bulletproof glass as a divider just to make the «floor plan» work out? The remnants of a regular house-​type door leading to the employee’s area, also covered in bars for protection?
Fine. I’m not putting the place down just because it was converted from a home into something a paranoid schizophrenic would conceive. The random holes drilled into a bulletproof window remove the last bits of «classiness» this place could attempt to muster. But I digress. Let’s skip to me ordering a small catfish dinner with fries and mac ‘n’ cheese though the «speakin’ holes» and then waiting at LEAST 15 minutes to get my order. All the while, the lady behind the glass pretty much got up and went in the back to gossip with the cook. After all, if nobody’s ordering and nobody’s food is ready, why waste time sitting at the bulletproof window?
Eventually I got my food and then headed home. Almost fell on the steep and narrow stairs, too.
Got home and unwrapped my meal. The first thing I spotted — two slices of plain Wonder bread sitting on top of my food.
Physics Lesson: if you’re using food to absorb flavor, place it UNDER the food from which you wish flavor absorption to take place. Flavor-​carrying liquids flow DOWN with this thing called GRAVITY. Placing white bread on TOP yields no flavor and no points for presentation if that’s all you initially see of your food.
Shoved the white bread aside and found my catfish. Took a bite and found several bones. If you’re cooking fish, you might want to take out the bones. If you care about your customers, you REALLY SHOULD take out the bones. You should ALSO not overcook the fish so it’s dry and you MIGHT want to put in some flavor.
(Note: adding a small cup of cheap-​o hot sauce to the bag does not count as «putting in some flavor»)
Next I tried the «macaroni and cheese» smooshed into a tiny styrofoam cup. Catfish City should really learn that you can’t just boil up some macaroni and then throw in some shredded cheese and expect people to purchase it as «macaroni and cheese». While a lawyer would say «hey, they delivered what they promised by selling you both macaroni and cheese» — it was nowhere near the true spirit of the dish.
My last real gripe about the food? The french fries. Remember that physics lesson I just gave you? Well now consider the fact that the fries in this meal were placed on the bottom. You got it — they tasted of fish. Which is not a pleasant taste. Especially considering the fried catfish from which they were absorbing flavor didn’t have a pleasant taste to begin with.
No, all in all this was a horrible adventure/​experiment, and I’m glad I only wasted money on a small catfish dinner. I thought it was be a nice addition to my route between Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits and Harold’s Chicken Shack, but I was disgustingly mistaken. Never again, Catfish City…