As a boy growing up in England during the 70s, “fish and chips” were a real staple food for me (yes, the stereotype about us Brits is true). I was never that much into the fish part as my preference was to peel off and eat the crunchy batter with my tiny, newsprint-blackened hands and consume huge mounds of chips and mushy peas at the same time. After becoming vegetarian, I used to eat just the chips and mushy peas — an unbeatable combo of grease and greens!

So, it was with much anticipation that, on a recent trip to San Francisco, I sampled the offerings of Weird Fish – a pescetarian restaurant in the Mission District that has a vegan Fish and Chips option on the menu. I was quite intrigued to understand how one could veganize the “fish” part of the fish and chips, and my intrigue quickly morphed into a very full belly not long after our order arrived.

Before we talk about the food, though, it’s worth mentioning that Weird Fish is rather small inside and can get very crowded at meal times. When we were there, around 1pm on a weekday, there was a line outside as well as way too many people cramped over tiny tables inside. Whenever something like that happens, you know you’re either somewhere trendy or somewhere really special. Well, I guess Weird Fish is both trendy and special, something we experience rarely in Los Angeles – usually places are firmly in the trendy or special camp and almost never both.

buffalo girls: seitan with buffalo sauce & vegan ranch dressing. $7

We ordered the Buffalo Girls (seitan “chicken” wings with buffalo sauce and vegan ranch dressing) as an appetizer, and were very pleased. Each piece was coated in a perfectly crunchy and spicy batter that was red hot (temperature AND spicy hot), yet the inside was warm and very chewy. I’ve never eaten “real” chicken wings, so I can’t compare these to them, but I can tell you they were absolutely delicious and I’d eat them again in a heartbeat.

tofu fish and chips: sweet and sour cream vegan soy-batter (gluten free) 2pc $8

For our main course we ordered one vegan seitan fish and chips (fries for you Americans), which came with vegan tartar sauce, wrapped in soy batter, and one tofu fish and chips entrée which was similarly presented, yet the sauce was vegan sweet and sour cream. At only $8 for two pieces with chips, this was not only a huge portion of food but great value too. If you’re extra hungry, you can get an additional piece of tofu or seitan “fish” for only $3 more. No wonder this place is so crazy busy!

seitan fish and chips: vegan tartar sause vegan soy-batter (gluten free) 2pc $8

The tofu choice was a huge, hunking chunk of firm, seasoned tofu with a very steamy inside…

yet the seitan “fish” was much more chewy (the same inside, I think, as the Buffalo Girls).

What’s special here is not a chunk of vegetable protein per-se, but what they DO with it. The vegan batter is incredibly tasty, soaked in oil and so crunchy that it breaks into bits that fly all over the place when you bite into it. The chips are also similarly perfectly prepared — probably from fresh potatoes which means you can actually taste the potato rather than the freezer bag that held them for months before you ate them.

The only downside I can think of for Weird Fish is the humongous amount of oil and calories one must consume when eating there. I must have had over 600 calories (most of them fat) from the one meal I ate. You know what, though? I’d eat that again if it was twice the calories and happily skip another meal to make up for it, even if that meal was at Millennium, allegedly one of the finest vegan dining establishments in the world, where I happened to have a reservation the very same evening I ate at Weird Fish.

weird fish
2193 Mission Street,
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.863.4744

Days
Mon – Fri: 11am – 4pm
Sat – Sun: 9am – 4pm
Nights
Sun – Thu: 5pm-10:30pm
Fri & Sat: 5pm-11:30pm