After not having had fried shrimp for quite awhile, I had tried Captain Porky's a couple weeks back. While good, I found myself still jonesen for fried shrimp.
So last night I made my way to Hagens. I'm hoping it was an off night as the shrimp flavor was basically not there and the breading was quite dense. The hightlight was that Hagens was willing to take some of the fresh shucked oysters and fry those up for me. HEAVEN !! The breading on the oysters was totally different than the shrimp, which leads me to believe the shrimp may have been prebreaded for quite some time. (FWIW, I personally will take
fresh fried oysters/clams over shrimp anyday).
I did notice that Hagens had smoked shrimp which I will have to try someday instead of trucking all the way down to Calumet Fisheries. In just looking at the smoked shrimp, I could tell there were more than a few bad shrimp in the bunch which leads me to question the quality control aspect at Hagens. To be specific, approx 90% of the smoked shrimp were bright, plump, just the way I'd expect smoked shrimp to look, the other 10% were gray & mealy looking. Quite a high % in my opinion.
Even though the oysters were terrific, I still had a jonesen for fried shrimp, so I headed over to RedHot Ranch
Da Beef wrote:I've been binging alot of late on Redhot Ranch. Hard to beat their real deal Chicago style hot dog with a half pound of fried for $11 and change. It always does the trick.
I have to agree with Da Beef, the shrimp at RedHot Ranch POPPED with flavor/freshness. I enjoyed the dog & fries as well.
I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be.