Sterling Ice Cream Corporation — Restaurant in Sterling

Don't order the fish sandwich. This is a review of the fish sandwich specifically. I have not yet tried any other food at this establishment. I drive by this place frequently going to and from work, and finally stopped in today for lunch. They have a pretty extensive menu, a lot of plate and sandwich options, etc. Perhaps the rest of their menu is amazing.

But I, unfortunately, ordered the fish sandwich. They asked me if I wanted anything else on it; I asked what does it come with? Nothing, just the fish. "Wow," I thought, "they must be really confident in the excellence of their fried fish to just put a hunk of fish between two pieces of bread and call it a day!" I requested pickles and light mayo.

Service was friendly and fast, and it's the only reason I rated 2 stars instead of 1. They weren't super busy, so I don't know how service fares on a busy day.

Got my sandwich to go, and I opened it in my car. The fish was really hot, right out of the fryer, okay, cool; I like fresh, and don't mind waiting a few minutes so I don't peel the roof of my mouth off. And they gave me a good amount of pickles, nice! And everything was in... a sesame hamburger bun. Oh. Okay. Well that's not great, but not a dealbreaker if the fish is good!

Then I took a bite and was immediately dismayed. I think the fish was catfish? Had a flavor I didn't enjoy, not like it was bad or anything, just a kind of fish that's not my favorite. But that wouldn't have been a dealbreaker either, if it was nicely seasoned, but let me tell you this fish had NO seasoning; I mean not even the barest hint of salt or anything else, NOTHING. It was like they just rolled the fish in straight up plain corn flour and threw it straight into the fryer.

I took about three bites hoping that it would improve, or that once I got to the pickles it would be edible. But then when I got to the pickles, they were SWEET. Who puts sweet pickles on a fish sandwich??

So let's see, we've got:

1. catfish (?) - the menu doesn't specify and fair enough, a lot of people enjoy this, but it's just not my thing. EVEN SO, it would've been just fine if the fish had been nicely seasoned
2. but then it wasn't seasoned literally AT ALL
3. and the pickles couldn't even make up for the lack of seasoning because for some ungodly reason they were SWEET... On a fish sandwich. Vile.

Look, I wasn't expecting anything fancy, but I was expecting something GOOD. And this was not, not even tolerable.

I had to take it home, throw out the bread and pickles, add back some decent sour dill pickles and mayo back on some bread I had on hand, and a whole lot of salt onto the fish before it was edible. I even had to peel off some of the breading from the fish because the sweetness of the pickles soaked into it.

Try literally anything else on the menu and you'll probably have a better experience.

Edit to add: This is just the gift that keeps on giving... I got into my car the next morning to discover that it REEKS of rancid fish. Apparently the sandwich leaked grease through the paper bag and onto my car seat and now I need to go find an affordable place to get my car seat cleaned. 🙃 But this is totally my fault in being careless about where I placed the bag....

I’ve never had bad food here in almost 40 years but tonight we ordered and noticed only the young lady at the window was wearing her mask but none of the 4-5 people inside were. All the people handling the food, a few young people, those who tend to be asymptomatic and gee one supersoreader in there and they well have a problem. Once i noticed that then I looked harder, communal condiments outdoors on the counter and napkins where you have to hold the box to get the napkins out. A woman walked past those of us standing back deciding what to order - maskless - leaned in nice and close to order from the very nice young lady taking the order. So they don’t care if anyone is wearing a mask or not. I feel for the owner, as a business owner I know how awful this business environment is and I also read the reviews that suffer they sold the business then ended up with it back again so maybe they are tired I don’t know. Unfortunately for them what I see with such a lack of regard Is now political and I now ascribe to this business owner a mindset that minimizes a pandemic as well as a host of other things and for me that is the final straw. Too bad, I’ve been going here since my early 20’s but the lack of regard for anyone’s safety makes me wearing what else goes on in...

Great place!

We stopped here after a warm day at Davis Farmland. This was a perfect “ending” to our day trip. 2nd review: it was a little busier than last time, but still, we got served rather quickly. The staff was a little more “stressed” it seemed. But maybe I thought that because of the “help wanted” sign in the window, and the girl was a little “short” with everyone. I’d probably knock a star off normally, but it was still a great ice cream treat for us after a long day at Davis Farmland! 3rd Update! Yep, went back again! It was great!

1st review: We didn’t have to wait at all to be served, though there were so many flavors of ice cream, it took a few minutes to figure out what we wanted!

The staff was super friendly, and accommodating for our kids. The ice cream was very good, as well as decent serving sizes. We were able to park, and sit on some benches in the shade. It was very nice!

We don’t get out that way much, but would stop there again in...