McCowan Fish & Chips — Restaurant in Toronto

Date visited : Tues 04/10/2018

Service : 3/5 Friendly enough service. We visited during around early dinner 18:00 EST. Only 1 other couple was in the dining area.

Food : 3/5 My wife opted for the the Halibut and Chips and Haddock and Chips for myself. A bit more pricey than our go to spot at Painted Post Fish and Chips.

We received our orders in about 10-15 minutes, as for the dishes themselves, the fries were done extra crispy just the way we like without us requesting to be cooked as such. As for the "fish" both the haddock and the halibut were tender and fresh not mushy or soggy. Each of us received 1 decently sized piece of fish for our orders. Batter wise I'd have to say it was light and crispy, less greasy than we have tried at other fish n chip spots. I'd rate the oiliness at 3/5** (view rating list below). For the price paid, would have been nice to have a bit more fries included with the order (we love our fries when they aren't frozen!)

Condiments : Ketchup in a squeeze bottle, not sure on the brand or quality. They have something that resembles tartar sauce, but it had a pink/orange tinge to it, which was also in squeeze bottle. However, something in the tartar sauce was making my tongue tingle to almost a numbing sensation, I had consumed more of their tartar sauce than my wife, so she didn't notice a similar sensation on her tongue. Since I have no idea what was/is the cause of that odd tingly/numbing sensation, I would caution other foodies with sensitive tongues to go easy on the custom tartar sauce that is provided to customers. Take out packs of tartar sauce are available (not as flavorful, but likely without that tingly/numbing aspect), along with malt vinegar packets are available.

Beverages : We are kinda picky on our Water, not fond of tap water at all due to varying mineral content and sodium content, we usually bring our own from Home, since we buy 15L Ice River water and fill up reusable bottles.

Alternatively we opt to share a can of soda or Iced Tea. Not many places offer filtered water as an option. Also, not all bottled water is good quality. At this venue they charge $1.00 + HST for a small glass of ice water with a 2 slices of lemon.

Other : Parking is rather limited in the little strip. However, there is additional parking in the adjacent plaza within walking distance. Debit/cash accepted. Hard to enter the parking lot if you are heading Southbound on McCowan, other drivers will likely not give way for you to turn in. I had other drivers blasting their horns at me as I was waiting for a gap in the traffic flow.

Repeat visit ? Possibly yes, a fellow friend on Yelp, had reviewed made in house fresh onion rings. So may return to try the fresh onion rings.

Oiliness rating** : 1/5 very light and no oily after effect on tongue 2/5 still relatively light, Malt Vinegar/Lemon wedges not yet needed except by choice 3/5 medium level of oiliness; light effect on the tongue ; Malt Vinegar/Lemon wedges MAY be used to cut grease 4/5 starting to lean towards being heavy; greasiness now NEEDING Malt Vinegar/Lemon Wedges to cut grease 5/5 very heavy and noticeable on the tongue, DIFFICULT TO CONSUME batter without Malt...

Food: The fish was good as well as the gravy. The fries were under-salted but I suppose less salt is healthier. There were a couple of undercooked fries which was pretty gross (I'm assuming this was because of how busy it was. They were probably just trying to fulfill the orders and get everyone out the door.) The tartar sauce was disappointing as it has an overpowering taste of mayo. Tasted artifical.

Experience: I'm assuming we just went on a really busy day and they're probably understaffed due to the pandemic, however there was no structure to how they were handling takeout orders for phone, ubereats, skip the dishes, in-store, etc. I placed my ubereats pickup order at 4:40pm with an estimated time for pickup at 5:10pm. This changed several time before I decided to drive there and see what the hold up was. I got there around 5:25pm to see a large lineup leading into the store. People waiting to place their orders, pickup their orders, and drivers waiting for their delivery orders. Kind of a mess especially since their sign stated 5 people should be in the store at a time. This rule was obviously not enforced by the restaurant. Anyways, we jumped the line to see what the holdup was, stated our order number to the guy packaging and distributing the orders and mentioned it should've been ready and we noticed that it was under a pile of takeout bags with labeled order numbers. He scouted it out from the stack of takeout bags and quickly put our order together. We were out of there by 5:37pm. Had we not mentioned our order number to the guy handling the packaging and distribution of the food, we probably would have been waiting for over an hour.

Overall: I'm giving it a 3-star because the food was alright and the experience could've been better. I think I'll try this place on a...

If you want bad customer service this is the place to go. Ordered three fish and chips dinner for skip the dishes delivery. I didn't see an option to select tartar sauce or extra tartar, so I still ordered but called the restaurant directly right after my order was accepted. The first time I called she demanded I come in person to get the tartar sauce and then hung up. The second time I had to cut the lady off just to get a word in and explain that it is skip the dishes, and to please add extra tartar sauce packs. I trusted that it would be in there and proceeded with my day until the delivery got here. Brought the food upstairs, fries are stone cold and guess what.. no tartar sauce in sight... not even one.. idk about anyone else but last time I checked the general public like their fish and chips with tartar sauce. So, I called back to the restaurant and the lady said "I'm too busy to put in tartar sauce". I spent $60 on my order after taxes.. I'm very disappointed by the lack of care and customer service here. The old owners were so kind and always tried to make mistakes right. Won't be...