If you find yourself knocking ’em back at Morrissey’s Irish Pub on Lake Street — which opened this spring — save a few bucks for what might be the most satisfying plate of fish and chips ($12) around. We’re talking one giant cut of Pacific cod, fried to golden in a well-seasoned, feather-light batter that keeps the cod juicy and flaky within. On top of a plate full of thick, salty fries and slathered in tangy house-made tartar sauce, it’s enough for three to share as a snack, or one to fill their belly.
But here’s what you should actually do: Order curry sauce and mushy peas to accompany the feast before you. According to Brian Yarvin, author of The Ploughman’s Lunch and the Miser’s Feast: Authentic Pub Food, Restaurant Fare, and Home Cooking from Small Towns, Big Cities, and Country Villages Across the British Isles, mushy peas are not simply green peas all smashed up. They are “marrowfat peas, which, when cooked, burst and form a mushlike paste.” The peas at Morrissey’s are obviously this — toothsome and chewy and creamy all at once, the way that lentils get when simmered on the stove with stock and vegetables.
And the curry sauce is just hot, silky bliss. It’s a little sweet with a warming amount of spice and wonderful gravy-like thickness that’s perfect for dipping a forkful of fries in. And then a chunk of that crisp cod, smeared with a spoonful of peas. Or dunk down the line of condiments. That’s a charming lunch. Almost as charming as Paul Crilly, one of Morrissey’s owners, who might take a turn by your table just to say hi.
Morrissey’s Irish Pub, 913 W Lake St, Minneapolis; 612.465.8555
