I AM WARY of fish. Especially fast-food fish. That’s a lifetime of desert-dwelling talking; I know catfish aren’t native to the strip mall at Pecos and Wigwam, where Reid’s Fish & More sells them. So I have ... freshness concerns. Sure, I trust places like Seablue to serve the freshest catch to the rich. But here, far from the clacking mandibles of the foodie elite? How far did that catfish slab have to travel before finding itself in the basket before me? How long did that take? These are not, I think, unnatural questions for someone raised in the fishless environs of Henderson.
On the other hand, I had no concerns about the apple pie.
Reid’s is a small place—two tables and a counter, with no more ambiance than that description implies. Otherwise, all the atmosphere is provided by Stella, the warm and free-spirited counterwoman. The menu is heavy on down-home cooking: catfish, chicken, burgers, hot dogs, Polish sausage, pulled pork.
So it is that, facing an evening at Chez Dickensheets—eating sloppy Joes in front of The Simpsons reruns—my wife and I take the kids to Reid’s instead. I mean it as a lesson of sorts: Life is too short to let fear of old catfish prevent you from experiencing new things.
Playing it safe, the rest of the fam’ avoids the fish, opting for the tried, the true, the not-easily messed-up. Which is to say, cheeseburgers and chicken fingers. Reid’s cheeseburger has a home-grilled quality. Human hands made this thing, which most assuredly isn’t the sense you get from the over-processed, hastily assembled, heat-lamped fast-food burgers my family is used to. They ate ’em anyway. At the same time, my son’s chicken fingers suggest that the crew at Reid’s, which only opened a week or two ago, has yet to master the deep-fryer. They’re crusty and overcooked, too dry. Not even liberal applications of ranch dressing can make them better than edible, and we’re talking about a kid who would eat the fingers off of a live chicken if he could.
Me, I had the sampler basket: two hunks of fried catfish, two chicken wings, four shrimp, plus fries and slaw. Didn’t think I’d like the catfish; I’m more of a dogfish person. But it was quite good. Moist and flaky, with a robust fish taste—at least where the fish was thick enough to stand up to the battering and frying. Where it was thinner, the fish got lost amid the crunch and chew of the breading.
Unlike the dwarf chickens that apparently supply 99 percent of the world’s chicken wings—only the fear of becoming Andy Rooney prevents me from launching into a rant about the baby-size wings most places serve these days—the birds that Reid’s got its wings from were full-size. Competently cooked, they were good but not surprisingly good. The shrimp were shrimp: small, very tasty, too few.
So: decent food. But it was undercut by so-so sides. The fries and slaw are anonymous and could have been served by the oven jockeys at Chez Dickensheets; Reid’s hasn’t done anything special to put its stamp on them. How hard, one wonders, would it be to season french fries?
I’ll confess to a quick buzz of sticker shock when the total flashed on the register: $30 for four people. And that’s before I decided to sample the apple pie, which comes in a generous slice, thick-crusted and delicious. (The chocolate cake was fine, as well.) But, in fact, my surprise is based on a family dining-out style that leans heavily on food advertised by large mascots, which is cheaper but tastes like it. Reid’s shortcomings are human flaws, not part of the business plan. Being the sweet-natured optimist I am, I assume the gang at Reid’s will master their chicken fingers, serve thicker cuts of catfish, and do something about the boring fries. And I’ll be back. A two-piece catfish dinner to go, Stella!