a peek inside the fishbowl

In my previous post I wrote about our visit to the Brockville Aquatarium. It was just past noon and we were ready to eat. Thankfully, I had a plan, and it was Don’s Fish and Chips. It’s only a few blocks away from the Aquatarium, so it didn’t take long to get there. Thankfully we arrived before a small horde descended.

To say that Don’s is plain jane kind of establishment is understating it. It’s a shack, with a small parking lot and a big fryer inside. It was stinking hot, inside and out but I’m more than happy to check out a no frills establishment. If you focus on one thing, you’re likely to do it really well, right? Sometimes this is the hallmark a great place for lunch.

So, yes. The menu at Don’s is just as pared down as the real estate. It’s essentially one piece or two. Pop or not. Here’s the menu, if you’d like to see for yourself.

There is no seating at Don’s, so we took our newspaper-wrapped bundles to the waterfront park in Brockville. It’s very pretty, with lots of benches and picnic tables.

The fish was meaty and firm and held together well. You could eat it with your fingers… in fact, I did, because we didn’t grab enough cutlery to share. And it was not greasy. The batter is not the tempura-style beer batter one might usually associate with a fish and chip stand, but this was just as good. Oh, and the fries! I am very choosy about my fries and these were perfectly cooked. There’s nothing worse than a pile of undercooked starchy potatoes!

Note: I shared a two-piece haddock with my eldest and it was more than plenty. In fact, Mark lamented not splitting an order with our other kid.

We ate our fish and chips while being observed by local gulls, then we worked it off with a little stroll down by the waterfront. I was sad that I didn’t bring a bathing suit. I would have jumped right in:

Next stop: the old Kingston Penitentiary!