A FOOD REVIEW: Schnipper’s fish tacos.
The good news is that as of 11am today, Midtown west has finally a restaurant that serves fish tacos. The bad news is that they aren’t really that great. Which is a total bummer, because all, or most of the right components are there. Schnipper’s is a new venture from the people who originally started Hale & Hearty soups, a popular, albeit slightly overpriced Manhattan lunch spot. I will stand by my previous declaration that a good fish taco is fried and never grilled. I’m looking at you Papacito’s (in Greenpoint, BKLYN). At last visit, if I really felt like arguing this point, I would have. But I would have also run the risk of looking like a complete lunatic. So when the guy at the counter told me that they grill their fish, which is the “authentic San Diego way,” I bit my tongue and just let him speak his nonsense. It also didn’t help his case that I was in San Diego one week earlier, and practically lived off Baja fish tacos. Of course they have grilled fish tacos there, but any self-respecting San Diegoan will tell you that authentic Baja-style fish tacos are battered and fried. In fact, the menu’s I encountered read “Baha fish tacos,” but that grilled fish was also available on request. However, not all places were as hospitable. Papacito’s fish tasted like charred gristle that had been scraped from the grates and hastily placed in the tortilla. They were disgusting, and this man should have been fired on the spot for defending them.
Now, back to Schnipper’s. The mere sight of fish tacos on a menu brings tears of joy to my eyes. Cabbage and not lettuce? Check! Pico de gallo? Check! Crema sauce? Check! Corn tortilla? Check!!!! The only cause for alarm…grilled fish! Still, they do use Mahi, and there is no way that I am not going to at least try them, especially if the restaurant is a mere 4 blocks from me.
When you arrive at Schnipper’s, which is in the ground level of the New York Times building across from Port Authority, you are greeted by a cheerful employee who welcomes you and points you in the right direction. The menu is attractive and well designed. Aside from the fact that this was their Grand Opening, the vibe of the place is very clean and well trafficked. The employees are actually smiling, and the whole operation feels very grassroots. Either some marketing company is effectively pulling the wool over my eyes, or these people are running with a good idea they’ve had. This experience must be right on all counts, or I will be very upset. I’m already indoors and not ordering from a truck or a cart, so the end product better be good. Either way, I know what I am ordering and am pleased to have beat the lunch rush. I am accompanied by 3 friends who are also thrilled by the fact that fish tacos are now a few short blocks away. After confidantly placing my order, along with a side of sweet potato fries, I am handed a beeper and ushered along. For $9 you get 2 small to medium sized tacos, which is already $3 more than what I believe these should cost. Tacos should not be more than $2.50 a piece, and $3 for a fish taco. This is a Midtown joint though, and Enid’s (in Greenpoint, BKLYN) charges $13, which is just shameful. My wait is soon through, as the almost unnecessary device lights up and begins vibrating in my palm. I walk to the cook station, grab my bag, review my order to make sure everything is correct, and then return to wait for my friends to receive their food. Save for one buddy not getting her order in a timely fashion (she ordered before me), it would appear that this is one well greased machine. Now it’s time to advance to the part of the trip that I have been waiting for. Eating the food.
Back at work, I sit down and remove the items for the plain brown bag. The sweet potato fries come with a maple dipping sauce that I sample and quickly dispose of. Not my kind of condiment. The fries themselves are fantastic!!! They appear to be twice fried, giving them a crispier and almost airy form. Sweet potato fries are tricky. Often times they are too mushy or not fried enough, which makes the grease weigh them down. These were perfect. I ate them first to save the best for last…..or so I had hoped.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I have taco fever. I can eat them everyday, and talk about tacos quite a bit. If I am not talking about them, I am thinking about them but not vocalizing my thoughts out of respect for those around me. I realize that tacos are all about the meat, but I am also a vegetarian. This being said…I will admit that my kind of love for tacos is abbreviated, as I am limited to non-meat items. A matter that is fine by me, because there are people out there that actually eat hard shell tacos with ground beef, lettuce, cheddar cheese, tomatoes and Ortega taco sauce. Fools!
At first glance, all seems to be in order. Simple logoless packaging; a very nondescipt box taking the place of the standard paper plate and aluminum foil. Two tacos stuffed inside with one lime wedge to ration. Note: radish slices were not included…whoever missed this detail is not winning points in my book. I notice that one taco has two corn tortillas, and the other only has one. This is odd, and I foresee it being a problem when it comes time to eat that one. Enough already! I squeeze the lime on both, and take a bite. The flavors are familiar, but none are really that pronounced. Something is missing. It’s not even hot. It’s room temperature at best. Luckily I am not a person who needs their food to be piping hot, but my friends all ageed that this is a definite problem. Still I am wondering why I am not getting what I need from this taco! I decide to put hot sauce on it. It helps, but still does not fix the problem. If the taco is lackluster to begin with, no hot sauce will be able to help that. I finish the first one in about 6 bites, and move on to the problem child. I assess the situation, trying to decide how to pick it up without the guts spilling out. I just go for it and hope for the best. Sure enough, the single tortilla crumbles in my hand and the contents fall out into the box. Just fucking great! Now I have formerly room temperature fish taco salad, which doesn’t even sound appetizing to me if it were an actual menu item. I grab a spoon and just start shoveling the sad remains out of their shallow cardboard grave. This third act is a total catastrophe, and I am left to spend the finale trying to rush through my food instead of being able to enjoy it. Not the way I thought this would go at all.
I will say that Schnipper’s has potential, and is not in the same league as most lunch spots (i.e. Pax, Cafe Metro), so it’s a welcomed addition to the neighborhood. They also haven’t even been open for a full business day, so given the circumstances I will try to be as leniant with my criticism as I can be. A lot of the ingredients on the menu are used in other menu items, which to me says that they have some sort of a uniform idea of where to take this and are going with that vision. It doesn’t seem over saturated or spread too thin either. I just hope that the integrity of the individual menu options will improve as the restaurant gains momentum. I will be back, maybe not for the fish tacos, but next time I will be getting a milkshake!!!
Scoring…(out of $5 smackers)
Cleanliness: $5 smackers. Open an hour, not enough time to get dirty.
Friendliness: $5 smackers. A big plus in Manhattan.
Wait: $4 smackers. Even with beeper system, my friend who ordered before me had to wait longer for her food.
Food: $3.5 smackers. Sweet potato fries were really good, while the consensus was that the fish tacos were a big letdown.
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Grand total: $17.50 smackers out of $20. Overall, a good start.
3 years ago • 0 notes