OPINION: This Utica-Area Restaurant Has the Best Fish Fry Anywhere

Fish fry is a big deal in Utica. If you're looking for the best in the area, there's one restaurant you need to try - because they have the best fish fry I've ever eaten.

I've eaten fish fry all over the Mohawk Valley - and beyond. For the longest time, my all time favorite was The Stief's - and I'd still eat theirs any day, with their special beer batter.

This weekend, we even drove all the way out to Skaneateles to the famous Doug's Fish Fry, where their fried fish and clams inspire people to wait in (socially-distanced) lines out the door. It was okay.

The local restaurant that deserves to have lines waiting out the door and up the street is the Chowder House. We got a fish fry sandwich - and I'm here to tell you: it's the best one I've ever eaten. The breading was perfect, light and just crispy enough, and the fish was cooked to flaky perfection. It was served on some kind of roll that had a crunch to it - not some re-purposed hamburger roll - and then there were two tomatoes and a little romaine lettuce. The whole thing was sublime.

The long-standing restaurant at 57 Burrstone Rd in New York Mills should be our Doug's Fish Fry, the fish version of Voss's - where lines of people wait for the privilege of eating their food.

Go get yourself one of their fish sandwiches or the fish fry. Let me know if you feel the same way. If not, tell me who think has the best fish fry in Utica and the surrounding area at beth@lite987.com.