Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Fish Fight!

Each year, Creative Loafing magazine holds a local food competition in honor of NCAA March Madness (the college basketball National Championship tournament for all of you non-sports fans out there). Thus we have the 2010 Fish Fight.


In the past, their food critics have tasted around for the area's best burgers and pizza. This year, they are having the consumers vote on the area's best fish sandwich. Each week is a different round, with the winners from each week being pitted against other winners. We are into Round 2 this week and up against Pincher's Crab Shack, with voting continuing until Monday the 22nd at noon. Pincher's is giving us some tough competition, so please take a minute and CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR US!!! You can vote more than once... you just have to wait 10 minutes in between votes.


We offer a lot of fish sandwich options at Madfish. We can serve any of our fish as a sandwich... tilapia, grouper, mahi, etc. We also have Baja Fish Tacos. Our most popular fish sandwich, however, is our Key West Fish Sandwich. It is a big piece of Pacific Whitefish (Basa) tempura battered and fried... served on Cuban bread with lettuce, tomato, onion and tartar sauce. Not only is it yummy, but it will FILL YOU UP!


Vote for us in Creative Loafing's Fish Fight, and come in sometime to try the Key West!

Monday, March 8, 2010

St. Patrick's Day


We love St. Patty's Day at Madfish. We love it so much that every year we make a whole bunch of Corned Beef and Cabbage... and just about every year we sell out. We'll start serving the American version of the Irish specialty, complete with potatoes and carrots, at 11:00am... and we'll keep serving it 'til the pot is empty.

So, what's the deal with Corned Beef and Cabbage anyways? It's technically not even an Irish dish... it really comes from New England, where the Irish first settled in the US. In Ireland, the closest thing to 'Corned Beef and Cabbage' is 'Bacon and Cabbage', with a bacon similar to Canadian bacon or salty ham. When the Irish immigrated to America, they began using corned beef instead of pork. Somewhere along the way, Americans adopted this meal as the traditional meal for St. Patrick's Day... since, you know, St. Patrick's Day is an Irish holiday and all.


Speaking of St. Patty's being an Irish holiday, let's talk a little about it's history. In Ireland, Paddy's Day (as they call it) is an annual feast day celebrating St. Patrick, who is one of the patron saints of Ireland. Though Paddy's Day has been a religious holiday in Ireland for centuries, it didn't become a public holiday until 1903, and is now recognized as a national holiday. Those lucky Irish get to take a day off to drink and eat and celebrate!

Wearing green and shamrocks has been a tradition since the 17th century... evidently St. Patrick used the shamrock to teach people about the Holy Trinity. "The wearing of the green" actually means to wear a shamrock on your clothing. Just remember, whatever you do... don't wear a 4-leaf clover. They aren't Irish and it doesn't make the Irish happy when you get 4-leaf clovers and 3-leaf shamrocks confused. Trust me... I know from experience.

In the US, St. Patty's day is kind of a big deal, whether you are Irish or not. I think it's mostly because people like the excuse to drink green beer and dress in head to toe green. In all seriousness, though... the Irish Society of Boston held the first St. Patrick's Day parade in the United States in 1737. New York's first celebration was in 1766, where the parades were meant to be statements about the unfair treatment of Irish immigrants. Numerous cities in America now hold parades and find different ways to celebrate the holiday. Chicago (see picture above) dyes the river green, as does Indianapolis. Savannah dyes all of it's fountains in the downtown parks green, and Seattle and many other cities paint their traffic stripes green along parade routes.

We don't dye any waterways green in Sarasota, but we do dye the beer green at Madfish! Come and join us for a day of corned beef, green beer and shamrock-wearin' fun!