Good Morgan's on Devon

I've driven by this fresh seafood store so many times and wondered how "fresh" everything really is. Does anyone buy their seafood here?


Good Morgan Kosher Fish Market
2948 W Devon
Chicago, IL 60659
773-764-8115
Moderator edit in of address

toniRogersPark wrote:Does anyone buy their seafood here?

You mean besides the thousands of orthodox Jews that live in the immediate area?

Good Morgan is a kosher fish market and has been catering to that area for decades. I can't remember buying anything there besides whitefish or cod when I was kid shopping with my grandparents. I'd be willing to wager that whitefish is their number one seller by a longshot and that it's moving out of there by the carload on Friday afternoons.

They also have a good amount of cooked and prepared items (fish salads, soups, etc.).

I haven't purchased anything from there in a little while, but I have no reason to call any of the freshness into question.

It's a good place that fills a niche, but it's certainly no replacement for a general purpose fishmonger.

Best,
Michael

Good Morgan Kosher Fish
2948 W. Devon Ave.
773-764-8115

eatchicago wrote:
It's a good place that fills a niche, but it's certainly no replacement for a general purpose fishmonger.

Best,
Michael

Good Morgan Kosher Fish
2948 W. Devon Ave.
773-764-8115

I read that, and I'm not quite sure what to say, being Mr. Local and all. It's just that generally (and maybe this comes from having lived also in three different coastal cities), I find the quality of "general fishmongers" around town to be not particularly great. Or let me put it this way, maybe it's me, but I'd rather see a some fresh whitefish than what tends to make up the inventory at other places.

Before getting back to Good Morgan, let's take Roberts a block or so East on Da'Bomb

Your affable host


Daily shipments of Lake Superior fish; alive the previous day, he tells me (does he look like someone that lies?). Note two things in the fish: the blood--that is a true sign of freshness. Note also, some of the eyes appear slightly cloudy. That's a sign of incomplete light, not the fish.


Here's the daily offerings. Note, chalkboard and what it stands for.


Something interesting. Customers ask for specific fish mixes for their gefitile fish recipes (reminds me of GWiv getting his spice mix at Spice House)


OK, that's Roberts, Good Morgan was asked about. What EC said. ( ). Actually, I have a bit more to say. I like Good Morgan a lot. They make really good gefitile fish, in two styles, and Riddlemay, this may be the fish to get them to eat gefitile fish. I also very much like their prepared salads. Morgan himself is also quite the gentleman, and we often walk out with a few extras beyond what we had paid for.

Robert's Fish Market
2916 W. Devon Chicago, IL 60645
773-761-3424

Nice post.

Roberts is a very nice place and carrys a good inventory.

Vital Information wrote:

eatchicago wrote:
It's a good place that fills a niche, but it's certainly no replacement for a general purpose fishmonger.

I read that, and I'm not quite sure what to say, being Mr. Local and all.

What I mean to say here is that Good Morgan is not Dirk's or The Fish Guy or Fox & Obel. Regardless of how you may feel about those places, they're a different type of fishmonger than Good Morgan. It's an important distinction to make for the original poster who was asking what it's like there.

Don't expect to go to Good Morgan and pick up soft shell crabs in season.

Best,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:Don't expect to go to Good Morgan and pick up soft shell crabs in season.

Best,
Michael

Oh, I know that Michael. Just like I'm telling Antonious not to eat favas in April, I'm telling people to avoid the soft shell crabs period. Instead, a nice piece of whitefish should do.

No?

Vital Information wrote:

eatchicago wrote:Don't expect to go to Good Morgan and pick up soft shell crabs in season.

Best,
Michael

Oh, I know that Michael. Just like I'm telling Antonious not to eat favas in April, I'm telling people to avoid the soft shell crabs period. Instead, a nice piece of whitefish should do.

No?

Well, I wasn't trying to tell anyone what and what not to eat. I just wanted to answer the question and give a reasonably accurate description of what one would be likely to find at Good Morgan.

Best,
Michael

A while back, we had breakfast at Good Morgans: smoked salmon omelet and perfectly fried eggs. Imagine eating breakfast at a fish shop! It was really good and the place friendly.

Roberts is even a closer walk for me, a non-jewish local. I'm just looking for someplace to get a descent piece of salmon or halibut. I can drive if I need fancy stuff, but walking for your groceries has a nostalgic allure to me. Now if I may ask, how is kosher fish treated as compared to non-kosher. Is it rinsed with salty water to remove most of the blood? I am already a fan of kosher chicken.

lambskin wrote:Imagine eating breakfast at a fish shop!

I often do. Usually involves Barney G, Russ and Daughters.

lambskin wrote:Imagine eating breakfast at a fish shop!

JeffB wrote:I often do. Usually involves Barney G, Russ and Daughters.

Speaking of breakfast in a fish shop, someone recently, though for the life of me I can't remember who, told me the sable omelet at Good Morgan was a must try.

Good Morgan



I've had and liked the fried whitefish sandwich, also available grilled, which owner Aharon Morgan estimates he has sold 250,000 of over the years, but my mission was sable and eggs.

Good Morgan Omelet menu



Unfortunately they were out of both sable and my second choice smoked salmon so I opted for slightly saltier lox which yielded a toasty tri folded omelet studded with rich salty lox. I made an error in ordering, lox, onions and eggs pair perfectly, I neglected to ask for onions, not a mistake I will make twice. Customers have a choice of salad or french fries.

Lox Omelet



There was a nice selection of premade items, gefilte fish looked particularly good, and a case of fresh looking fish.

Good Morgan Fish Case



Mr. Morgan is an interesting conversationalist, touching on the chub shortage, raising teenagers and plans for a nicely done full service restaurant one store front West, Morgan's Harbor Grill which will feature fish, no surprise, but also kosher sushi.

Aharon Morgan



Spotless, reasonably priced with three tables of four available for eating in and bonus points for Tel-Aviv Kosher Bakery, home of fantastic onion rolls just East. Good Morgan is well worth a vist.

Enjoy,
Gary

Good Morgan Kosher Fish Market
2948 W Devon
Chicago, IL 60659
773-764-8115

Tel-Aviv Kosher Bakery
2944 W Devon Ave
Chicago, IL 60659
773-764-8877

G Wiv wrote:

lambskin wrote:Imagine eating breakfast at a fish shop!

JeffB wrote:I often do. Usually involves Barney G, Russ and Daughters.

Speaking of breakfast in a fish shop, someone recently, though for the life of me I can't remember who, told me the sable omelet at Good Morgan was a must try.

Since I was there for this "in person" conversation, I'm happy to inform you that it was none other than lambskin, who you quoted above. I'm guessing you probably just didn't know her LTH handle at the time.

=R=

tonirogerspark wrote:Now if I may ask, how is kosher fish treated as compared to non-kosher. Is it rinsed with salty water to remove most of the blood? I am already a fan of kosher chicken.

Answering this question two years late, but since no one else has....

Unlike meat, kosher fish doesn't receive any special preparation. But a kosher fishmonger will have religious supervision to certify that all of the fish sold there are kosher species and that nothing has been done to it to make it nonkosher. To be kosher, a fish must have both fins and scales.

A religious Jew might buy a whole raw fish from a nonkosher store, but he would probably not trust fillets.

Update: Good Morgan's Fish on Devon now offers sushi! The sushi chefs are there Monday through Thursday from 11 am until 7 or 8 pm, and Friday from 11 am until 1 or 2 pm. Of course, over the upcoming Passover, there will be no sushi.

Also, Morgan's Harbor Grill will be opening soon after Passover. Chef Erik Williams (Volo and Bin 36) has put together a menu of contemporary American food with a distinctly Asian flair. Of course, the entire menu is Parve Kosher.

Stop in and see us sometime.

lambskin wrote:A while back, we had breakfast at Good Morgans: smoked salmon omelet and perfectly fried eggs. Imagine eating breakfast at a fish shop! It was really good and the place friendly.

There's also Davis Street Fish Market in Evanston. When I lived in Evanston, a friend and I would go there early on Sunday morning in the fall. I always liked being out early on a sunny, crisp mid-fall morning with a bit of a lake breeze. I should head down there one of these Sundays and drag him out of his house to go to breakfast.

Went to Good Morgan, hunting for either fish to gefilte myself or a reasonable facsimile of homemade that I could pass off as my own. In its prepared foods case, GM had one lonely but delicious looking gefilte fish ball, so i enquired as to whether they had more hiding somewhere.

Young, orthodox man behind the counter said, "Oh yeah, tons. How many you want?" I asked the price and he replied, "$4.95."
"Per pound?" I asked.
"No, each."
"Really? For each little ball?" I asked with a GTFOH look on my face.
"Yes, really. What? I am lying to you?"

Okay. Guess I'm making my own again this year. GM wanted an average price of $11/lb. for a ground whitefish/pike mixture. This also seemed a little high, so I thanked the gruff, young man for his help and headed for the door. He responded with a "hmph," as if he were pissed that I wasted his time.

Headed down the block to Robert's Fish Market, and it could not have been a more night-and-day experience. I let the gentleman behind the counter know what I was looking for, and he recommended a whitefish/pike/trout mixture (in about a .75/1/.25 ratio). The per pound price averaged about $5. As he cut a piece off of a whole trout, he said, "Might as well give you the head too. You'll need it for the stock. I'll just throw this in after I weigh the rest." Turns out he is the owner, Arturo. As his staff filleted and ground my fish, we chatted a little about gefilte fish recipes, how I swore last year to never make gefilte fish again, and how he came to buy the store from Robert. He claimed to be the foremost Mexican gefilte fish expert in Chicago. We joked about the difference between "a gefilte fish expert that is Mexican" and a "Mexican gefilte fish" expert. Awesome. (I hope he's right about that trout addition.)

As I left, he and 2 or 3 of his employees shouted, "Have a good holiday!" in unison.

My grandmother and I made gefilte fish yesterday. She uses a mixture of whitefish, trout, northern pike, and buffalo. I've never had anything other than her recipe, but her mixture of these four turns out great. I don't know the exact proportions, but the trout is definitely the smallest of the four.

RAB wrote:Went to Good Morgan, hunting for either fish to gefilte myself or a reasonable facsimile of homemade that I could pass off as my own. In its prepared foods case, GM had one lonely but delicious looking gefilte fish ball, so i enquired as to whether they had more hiding somewhere.

Young, orthodox man behind the counter said, "Oh yeah, tons. How many you want?" I asked the price and he replied, "$4.95."
"Per pound?" I asked.
"No, each."
"Really? For each little ball?" I asked with a GTFOH look on my face.
"Yes, really. What? I am lying to you?"

Okay. Guess I'm making my own again this year. GM wanted an average price of $11/lb. for a ground whitefish/pike mixture. This also seemed a little high, so I thanked the gruff, young man for his help and headed for the door. He responded with a "hmph," as if he were pissed that I wasted his time.

Headed down the block to Robert's Fish Market, and it could not have been a more night-and-day experience. I let the gentleman behind the counter know what I was looking for, and he recommended a whitefish/pike/trout mixture (in about a .75/1/.25 ratio). The per pound price averaged about $5. As he cut a piece off of a whole trout, he said, "Might as well give you the head too. You'll need it for the stock. I'll just throw this in after I weigh the rest." Turns out he is the owner, Arturo. As his staff filleted and ground my fish, we chatted a little about gefilte fish recipes, how I swore last year to never make gefilte fish again, and how he came to buy the store from Robert. He claimed to be the foremost Mexican gefilte fish expert in Chicago. We joked about the difference between "a gefilte fish expert that is Mexican" and a "Mexican gefilte fish" expert. Awesome. (I hope he's right about that trout addition.)

As I left, he and 2 or 3 of his employees shouted, "Have a good holiday!" in unison.

See upthread for some of my affection towards Robert's. I do believe it is the best local source for freshwater fish around here, and I also wish it was damn closer to the Bungalow.

Vital Information wrote:See upthread for some of my affection towards Robert's.

How do you think I knew to ditch Good Morgan and go to Robert's?

Oh, and by the way, I called Dirk's (much closer to home) before I headed up to Devon. They wanted an average of $16/lb. for whitefish and pike. Yep -- that's over 3 times what I paid at Robert's for fish that couldn't possibly be any fresher. Sheesh.

I could use some tuna. Is there a preference between either place? I just want plain tuna, not sushi-grade. I don't know my fish, but I'm looking for the red, boneless fillets (steaks?) if that helps.

Thanks!

Pie Lady wrote:I could use some tuna. Is there a preference between either place? I just want plain tuna, not sushi-grade. I don't know my fish, but I'm looking for the red, boneless fillets (steaks?) if that helps.

Thanks!

I believe Good Morgan has been closed for a while. Haven't been to Roberts. My preferred fish source is The Fish Guy on Elston just Northwest of Montrose/Pulaski And you are looking for tuna steaks.

http://fishguy.com/

spinynorman99 wrote:

Pie Lady wrote:I could use some tuna. Is there a preference between either place? I just want plain tuna, not sushi-grade. I don't know my fish, but I'm looking for the red, boneless fillets (steaks?) if that helps.

Thanks!

I believe Good Morgan has been closed for a while. Haven't been to Roberts. My preferred fish source is The Fish Guy on Elston just Northwest of Montrose/Pulaski And you are looking for tuna steaks.

http://fishguy.com/

I might be hallucinating, but I'm pretty sure it's still open. Well, every time I've been by it of late, it's been a Saturday so they haven't been doing business, but the look of the place gave every indication that they would be open the next day.

Has anyone tried the sushi? I'm intrigued.

Good Morgan is indeed closed. It is now Devon Fish and Pizza. http://devonfishandpizza.com

I also went to Robert's, but they have a tiny selection and no tuna.

But The Fish Guy had it. He also suggested I try the skate, so I did.

Aha. I knew something was there.

Good Morgan's is now closed and is now Masala Grill.

A community rallying to help Chicago’s only kosher fish market is a good sign — literally.
https://forward.com/news/465332/a-commu ... paign=news

The community is rallying behind the owner of a beloved Far North Side kosher market after a sudden illness left him hospitalized and his business closed for nearly two months.

Robert’s Fish Market, 2916 W. Devon Ave., has been closed since July 31, when owner Arturo Venegas was hospitalized and diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease, said his daughter, Jennifer Venegas.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2024/09/24 ... -can-help/