Can you go home again? The Hot Fish Shop - Rochester, Minnesota

I was born in a small city in Southern Minnesota, USA.  My paternal grandmother was a first generation American - her parents emigrated from Poland.  She lived her entire life in the house she was born in.  The now 120+ year old home still belongs to a cousin.  I could not imagine spending my entire life in one house - from cradle to grave.  I suppose there is something romantic to the notion, but I appreciate that I have lived in five states in the US, as well as lived for short periods of time in Taiwan, Switzerland, Australia and Malaysia.  I do miss the neighborhood aspect of my Grandmother's home (read about the not so charming neighbors in another one of my blog posts entitled: Cadavers, Adultery, The Butterfly Effect and Why I Have Been Missing In Action.)  I miss the local ladies who would can food straight from their garden.  I miss my chain-smoking, gruff but lovable Grandmother and I miss my Velveeta-cheese eating and TV wrestling match watching Grandfather.

When I was little, a fancy night out with my relatives would be dinner at The Hot Fish Shop restaurant in Winona, Minnesota.  The owners were Polish and I remember being very happy to get a large button that said "Proud to be Polish" and the red and white "Solidarity" buttons too.  I have never been to Poland (yet) and at the time had no clue who Lech Walesa was, but I felt connected to a cause bigger when I saw such buttons.  

My two cousins and I all have first names that start with L.  I am the youngest, so I guess I am L Number 3.  As a child, L Number 1 - the oldest, was the blond, sassy, very outspoken grandchild.  She adored shrimp - so much so that she wore a white fluffy bathrobe with a big pink shrimp on the back of it.  When we go to The Hot Fish Shop, she would of course order the batter-fried shrimp.  I did not care for the shrimp and didn't start liking it until college when I tasted shrimp properly cooked and not rubbery.  My cousin L Number 2 and I - both dark-haired, would order the batter-fried torsk at the Hot Fish Shop.  I didn't know then and honestly didn't know until I did some research for this blog post (yeah, I actually do research for this blog, can you believe it??) that "torsk" is just a Norwegian word for cod.  All this time I believed my childhood was filled with fluffy, flaky, mystical fish.  Nope, just cod.

I loved The Hot Fish Shop.  It first opened Christmas night in 1931.  The Kowalewski Family ran the restaurant.  It was a Winona, Minnesota institution.  Families had been dining there for generations and I was happy to be part of one of those families.  The restaurant was dark with wood paneling and in my small town youth was all I knew of a family-style supper club.  For a poor kid who didn't get to go out to dinner much, it was a grand saloon.  

My Uncle would let us kids order Shirley Temples (read about my love of Shirley Temples here) and we felt very fancy indeed.  Pickled beets would be served as an appetizer (which honestly every restaurant should just give you pickled beets the minute you walk through the door - it is a moral imperative.  It is also why I love Lenny's Restaurant in Clearwater, Florida.  If you go there for breakfast you get a danish basket per person and for lunch, pickled beets.  My dream is to have a neighbor who gives me jars and jars of canned pickled beets.  But I digress ... ahhh beets ...)

In addition to their fabulous beets, The Hot Fish Shop's tartar sauce was one of its top draws.  The Hot Fish Shop had a small seafood market attached where you could buy the best smoked fish and jars of the tartar sauce to take home.  Years later, I would buy my Mom fresh and smoked fish from the The Hot Fish Shop Market - and one time I even bought her frog legs, just to see what she would do with them.  (She cooked them and ate them!  Eeeew!)  

When my little sister Squidge was seven years old, my aforementioned oldest cousin L Number 1 was getting married to a man who turned out to be husband number 1.  We returned to Winona, Minnesota for the wedding festivities.  Before driving back to Minneapolis after the wedding weekend, I contemplated whether we should take an hour and have lunch at The Hot Fish Shop before going home.  I was in a rush to get back to the city, but Squidge had never dined at The Hot Fish Shop and those pickled beets were calling.

I had my usual - fluffy and crisp batter-fried torsk, French fries, coleslaw, heaping spoonful of homemade tartar sauce and of course those Hot Fish Shop pickled beets.  Except this time, Squidge was the one getting the Shirley Temple.

I was glad that I had stopped to have lunch at The Hot Fish Shop because less than two years later in 1999, after almost seventy years in business The Hot Fish Shop closed - with the current owner citing extensive overhead as the reason for the closure in the Winona Daily News.  That lunch was my last meal at The Hot Fish Shop.  Every time I am in Winona, I am still saddened that it is no longer there.  I miss both the food as well as the memories of dinners with my Grandparents.  

(Side Note:  I am glad that Bloedow's Bakery - a bakery in business since 1924 - where I would visit with my Grandmother and get the best doughnuts with chocolate glaze - is still open and running in Winona, Minnesota.  Raised in the city, this was the first time I ever saw unsliced bread being sold.  I remember being in awe that the bread wasn't sliced!  I was a very sheltered kid, evidently! In 2012, Bloedow's Bakery was named best doughnut shop in Minnesota - obviously all of Minnesota agrees with my opinion.  If you are ever in Winona, Minnesota, get yourself over to Bloedow's Bakery first thing in the morning - your stomach will be ever so happy that you did.)

One night, I was searching the internet and I stumbled upon the Winona Daily News article that The Hot Fish Shop was re-opening - by the grandson-in-law of The Hot Fish Shop's owner but that this time the restaurant would be in Rochester, Minnesota instead of Winona.  Would it be like The Hot Fish Shop of my youth?  I knew that the next time I was in Minnesota, I would have to check it out.

In October of this year, I went to visit my sister Squidge- in her first "adult" apartment after graduating college.  I told her about The Hot Fish Shop opening in Rochester, Minnesota and she agreed to accompany me for dinner to check it out.  I must state for the record that Squidge doesn't really remember The Hot Fish Shop and her one lunch there when she was seven years old, but I still felt like we were going back in time and bonding over the family's generational link with the restaurant.

The new Hot Fish Shop in Rochester, Minnesota; does not look like the old Hot Fish Shop (see a postcard of the old Hot Fish Shop here).  The new Hot Fish Shop is in a strip mall across the parking lot from a very fancy looking movie theater.  

There may or may not be a Squidge in this picture

But the logo on the menu was 100% old school Hot Fish Shop.  I hate to admit this but I got a little giddy just seeing the wacky old logo.  I half-expected my deceased Grandmother to sit down next to me.

The decor was also not like the old supper club-style Hot Fish Shop, but if the food was like it was - who cares about decor?

I was happy to see the Kowalewski Family Flag flying in the restaurant.

There were also pictures and news articles from the original Hot Fish Shop.  I liked being able to feel the history in the new restaurant.

The menu no longer said "torsk" - but it did have the less exotic sounding cod.  :)

My sister and I both ordered the batter-fried cod with baked potatoes.  In honor of my cousin L Number 1, I also ordered a side of batter-fried shrimp.  And of course, we started with pickled beets.  

My sister and I must have dug into the pickled beets so fast that I didn't get a picture of them, but they are also for sale (as well as the tartar sauce and fish batter) at the restaurant.

The beets were as good as I remembered.  Crisp, tart and delicious.  This was a good first start.  The batter-fried cod arrived next.  

Batter-fried cod (aka torsk), a shrimp, baked potato, cole slaw and Squidge's finger.

My dinner without Squidge's finger - pickled beets in the background

Squidge showcasing the coleslaw

The Hot Fish Shop coleslaw

The coleslaw and tartar sauce were exactly like I remembered it.  (By the way, the best coleslaw I have ever eaten is from Mabel's Lobster Claw in Kennebunkport, Maine.)  The Hot Fish Shop tartar sauce is still amazing - and I wish they sold it in Tampa Bay.  The baked potato was fluffy and lovely.  The batter-fried cod was crisp with a tempura-style batter.  Unfortunately, it was really greasy.  It needed to be drained on paper toweling for a minute before being served.  But had the fish been properly drained it would have been very similar to the same crisp, pillowy, fluffy, flaky fish of my youth.  I remember the planks of fish being much larger when I was little, but I was also a lot smaller when I was little - so that might have been a matter of perspective versus fish size.

The shrimp was also how I remembered it - in other words, after all these years I still didn't care for The Hot Fish Shop's shrimp.  But that's OK, there were plenty of things I did enjoy there.

I don't remember ever eating dessert at the original Hot Fish Shop.  But my sister and I saw a large slab of tiramisu in the glass case that was calling our name.

When you think Southern Minnesota family-style seafood restaurant, you probably don't think "tiramisu" but wow, I have to say this was some of the best tiramisu I have ever had.  It was creamy with just the right punch of espresso and rum flavors.  In trying to go home again, I not only found the tartar sauce of my childhood but a creamy, rich dessert that I was not expecting to find.  I would recommend going to the new Hot Fish Shop just for their tiramisu (but stay for the fish, tartar sauce and pickled beets!)  

I miss my Grandparents and I miss The Hot Fish Shop of my youth, but I was glad to be able to have dinner with my beautiful sister Squidge and reminisce about childhood memories at the new Hot Fish Shop over some batter-fried fish and pickled beets.  If you're in the Rochester, Minnesota area, check it out and make sure you have some tiramisu too!

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