Think Global Eat Local
Johnson's Door County Fish and Shrimp

A few weeks ago, I threw out on Chowhound, the bold statement that New Orlean's food writer, Tom Fitzmorris's 33 best seafood restaurants in New Orleans were 33 better than anything in Chicago. Of course, someone had to challenge me on that statement. While I concede that there are seafood oriented restaurants in Chicago, especially Japanese, that would be as good as anything in New Orleans, I stand by my statement in the sense of seafood. No matter how much air freight and such exists these days, seafood in Chicago cannot match seafood in New Orleans. Blessed with access to all sorts of water, New Orleans teems with local seafood: shrimps (multiple varieties), crayfish, frogs, oysters, crabs, snapper, pompano, catfish, etc., etc. Who needs arctic char, farm raised salmon and Chilean sea bass when you have that.

Yet, seafood restaurants try and try to compete, flying in all sorts of stuff that at times seems fresh, but never quite equals truly fresh--eat seafood on the coasts if you do not believe me. Why fight this fight. How 'bout glorifying local fish? In Europe and Asia, fresh water fish is prized, more than respected. In France, especially in say Burgundy, you would well expect pike and their perch on the menu (as well as frog legs). Can anyone remember a time that Trotter, Trio, Tru and on down put a freshwater fish on their menu? Yes, there are obvious health and logistical issues. It seems hardly that long ago when they told us we'd pretty much die from eating lake fish, and because of environmental factors, the commercial fishing fleets in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana have been ditched. Charlie cannot go to some local dock and purchase fish right off the boat.

Great Lake fish still comes to town from Canada. Johnson's Door County Fish and Shrimp once owned a fleet off of Gills Rock, Wisconsin. Today, they rely on those Canadians for pike, perch and whitefish. They fry and broil the fish but stopped using their smokehouse in 1979. They told me that some of their vendors provide the fish fresh and some frozen, but they actually prefer frozen as they do not fully trust the transportation network of Great Lakes fishing fleets. Perhaps if we all raise the demand for our local fish, we can improve the sourcing.

Fresh water fish is a taste. It is classically fishy when people think of fishy. The taste is often described as dirty. Plus, the texture of lake fish can be soft, verging on mushy. But think of this AS taste, strong, pronounced, real food. It stands up well to heavy frying or simple broiling. Both the Condiment Queen and I liked what we had the other day at Johnson's. I had the perch, several strips with a heavy coating of breading, presented grease-less. She had whitefish, dusted aggressively with black pepper, that stayed very moist after broiling.

Oddly as a Chicago foodie can tell you, distant shrimps seem as much a part of the local fish realm as anything. On Chowhound once (et seq.) there was a fruitless quest to figure out why. Johnson's offers fried gulf shrimp, breaded AND lightly breaded. I've yet to try either, but seeing how good Johnson's fried the perch, I am pre-disposed to liking them.

Good home-made, celery seed heavy cole slaw, so-so fake skin on french fries.

Johnson's Door County Fish and Shrimp
908 E. Roosevelt Road, Lombard, IL
630-629-6520