I Like to Eat Fried Things on Friday

I don't have a standing appointment with my father on Fridays but frequently one of us will call the other for a Friday fish fry date. When we're feeling lazy, we head to Boomerang's on Niagara, just around the corner, for a perfectly acceptable fish fry. Other times, the feeling of adventure strikes and we try a new place. Last night was just one of those adventurous nights so we headed to the wilds of Riverside to try out Viking Lobster Company. From what I can tell, this establishment was open in the 70s, closed down and has seen several other restaurants in its place, as well as many years of plain vacancy. The corner of Tonawanda and Austin streets is not where I expect to find any restaurant, much less one that flies in lobster fresh each day.

We entered the unassuming building and found ourelves in a quaint foyer, complete with lobster lamp and chalkboard featuring daily specials. There seems to be a series of small rooms and we were ushered into the front, a warm area with lots of cozy dining nooks. Our waitress (whose mother was working in the kitchen, I loved this) was very pleasant and rattled off a number of very affordable lobster specials, inclduing the lobster bake with a lobster, mussels, clams and corn for $29.95. They also have what's called the Viking Seafood meal, which inlcudes a lobster, crab legs, shrimp, mussels and clams or the Ultimate which adds a chicken breast and a rack of ribs to that mess. Whoa. I'd have to starve all day to be able to eat that.

The specials were appealing, but I was there to check out the fish fry. Their version comes with a choice of soup, I went for the clam chowder over the french onion. It was very tasty, but more like clam soup than chowder. It didn't seem to have any milk or cream but instead was thickened simply by the potatoes. The fish fry itself was fantastic: no beer batter here but was coated with a batter lightly seasoned with cornmeal. The fish was tender and fresh and cooked perfectly. Their coleslaw, while homemade, was just okay. Some coleslaws are much too wet, even mushy. This coleslaw suffered from the opposite problem; the thick wedges of cabbage did not have enough moisture to break down a bit and so it was too dry and very crunchy. I prefer thick-cut french fries, these were of the shoestring variety but pretty good anyway. We ended with coffee (included in our $9.95) and that was surprisingly good too. It was strong and even lightly scented of almonds.

This would be a great place to get a group of hungry friends together, slide into the roomy, wrap-around booth and feast on mountains of seafood. I'm surprised that I haven't heard much about this place by word of mouth but I'm doing my best to get the word out!