Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Eadie's Two Locations

Sometimes it pays to take a chance.

I happened to be driving down Wise Avenue today in North Canton for a completely unrelated reason when I first noticed Eadie's Fish House. Slightly intrigued and making a mental note to maybe return one day, I noticed that right next to Eadie's Fish House was a little drive-up place that advertised beer batter fish and onion rings also sporting the name Eadie's. I'm ALWAYS a sucker for a good beer batter fish and unfortunately, so few places really deliver a good one. With what seems like a split-second decision, I pulled into the parking lot and decided to give this little roadside stand a try.

Here is the building from the front of the road:


I walked up to the front and started looking over the posted menu:


I knew what I wanted; fish and onion rings, just like their sign advertised. But, as I looked over the menu several times, I was having a hard time seeing it listed. When I finally asked the woman running the order window, she said that they didn't serve the fish here. They only served it at the main restaurant next door. Well, crap! I was kind of in the mood for that and now I had to decide what I wanted to do. At that moment I wasn't really in the mood for an entire sit-down meal. So instead, I just decided to get a small sampling of the food here. I ended up ordering a BBQ pulled chicken sandwich, a small order of fries, and a small chocolate malted shake. I was a little nervous about the BBQ pulled chicken sandwich because I was concerned that they might use one of those over-the-top sweetened BBQ sauces. I needed have worried about the sweetness.

After about 10 minutes, my food finally came up. First, the chocolate malted shake:


This wasn't bad. It had just a slight hint of malt to it. Personally I would've preferred a more intense chocolate and malt flavor. The texture was super thick, causing me to basically leave it for a while and then drink it when it was more melted, lest I suffer the headache induced by sucking on the straw too hard.

Next up, the fries:


When I went to pick up my order, I asked the young man behind the counter whether the fries were fried from fresh or frozen. He gave me this almost ghastly look and said, "Oh, frozen. We just wouldn't have enough time to make them fresh." Sigh. Apparently they didn't have enough time to cook them from frozen, either, because these were greasy, flaccid and seriously undercooked. Honestly, who wants to eat undercooked fries? I ate about three of these before giving up.

Finally, a shot of my BBQ pulled chicken sandwich, both wrapped and unwrapped:



Visually, this was just unappealing. The bun was smashed and the filling that peaked out of the sides looked ominously similar to what it might appear like later on were I to see it again (I'm trying to be delicate here). But, being a brave little culinary soldier, I tasted it. My worry about the BBQ sauce being too sweet was mollified; it wasn't. However, missing from this sandwich was any kind of really stand-out flavor. And unfortunately, the filling was so wet that the inside of the bun had essentially turned to mush. This definitely required a toasted bun to stand up to the filling. Three bites of this and I decided that something was seriously amiss at this little roadside stand.

On the side of the building is an advertisement for 24 different flavors of soft serve that they offer here.


Upon checking out the website for the company advertised on this banner, I came to discover that this "system" for offering so many flavors is nothing more than artificially flavored syrups that are added to a standard frozen custard base, whizzed up, and served in the vessel of your choosing. I was seriously unimpressed with my experience at this roadside stand.

Having only eaten three bites of my sandwich, three lousy, limp fries, and about 1/4 of my shake, I decided to see if the mother restaurant located right next door might redeem my shaken faith. I wasn't in the mood for a sit-down dinner before, but I quickly decided to change my tune. And since the beer batter fish and onion rings were only served there, I figured, what the hell. It couldn't get any worse, right?

I didn't manage to get a photograph of the sign or the building known as Eadie's Fish House as it had started to rain and I didn't particularly want to get wet. After walking in and getting seated, I started to peruse the menu. I began to see items on the menu that made me believe that I should've just chosen this place first. Proprietary beer battered cod, special beer battered onion rings, smoked chicken wings with lots of interesting sauces, the list goes on. They did have fries on the menu as well, and in fact, most of the dinners came with them by default. Worried that these would be the same awful fries that were being served by it's sibling namesake, I decided to pay the extra $1 and get the onion rings instead.

I ordered the two piece beer batter cod and onion rings. Here is what came out:


Hallelujah! Homemade, homemade, homemade! You could tell just by looking at these that they had never seen a freezer in their lives. The fish is kind of buried under the MOUND of onion rings they give you.

Once I ate a few rings and repositioned the rest, I was able to get a better shot of the fish:


While ketchup is on the table when you sit down, when you order the fish and onion rings, the following two condiments show up with your meal:


On the left is a chipotle horseradish mayonnaise for the onion rings and on the right is a homemade tartar sauce with sweet pickles. Before even tasting a single thing I could see a 100% transformation from what I had been served just 30 minutes prior. But the proof, as they say, is in the tasting.

For the most part, the meal lived up to my expectation. Both condiments brought to the table were excellent and definitely complimented the food with whom they were meant to be paired. Normally I would eat my onion rings with ketchup, but the chipotle horseradish mayonnaise was a nice foil for the onion rings. And the tartar sauce added a nice bit of acid and sweetness to the fried cod.

The crust on the onion rings was wonderful. Light, crispy, flavorful. I loved everything about the onion rings except one thing: the rings were too thin. They just weren't meaty enough to allow the sweetness of the onion flavor to compliment the oiliness of the outside of the crust. That's not to say that the onion rings were greasy. But there will always be some inherent grease remaining in any fried product. The batter on the fish was wonderful and crunchy, but unfortunately, even my nice thicker pieces of cod were just a tad bit overcooked and kind of dry. The excellent tartar sauce helped to mitigate the dryness factor, but things being what they are, this could've been a slam dunk if they had managed to keep the fish moist.

Oh, yes, the cole slaw. Almost forgot about that. It was nice, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Across from my table was a sign that read the following:


Something about the irony of the sign just caused me to chuckle. Can you spot it, too?

I will definitely be going back to Eadie's Fish House; Eadie's the sit-down restaurant. The drive-up stand next to Eadie's that actually advertises the fish and onion rings on it's banner? Um, not so much.

After I finished my meal at Eadie's proper, I returned to my car with my leftovers only to discover that I had left the 3/4 of my malted shake in the cupholder. It was now the perfect consistency to drink. It had melted just enough that it was still cold but was finally drinkable without having to resort to a vacuum cleaner to get the liquid up the straw. And while I agreed with my earlier assessment that this was not a great malt, it at least gave me a sweet way to finish my fried fish meal.

Mug 'o Root Beer Goodness

The first time I had a can of root beer, I was suddenly presented with an anomaly. All the root beer I drank as a youth had been at the local carhop drive-in places (like A & W). What surprised me so much was how hard it was to drink the soda without having to burp incessantly or the burning sensation that the overly carbonated soda caused when I swallowed. To this day, I have to let a newly opened can of soda sit for a few minutes to allow some of the carbonation to escape before I can drink it. The weird thing about my youthful root beer memories was that I remember the frosty cold mugs of sweet nectar having carbonation, but not so much that they weren't smooth and drinkable from the minute you got them.

Besides the nationwide chain A & W, a local Akron chain called B & K still has some drive up stands in the area. I choose to go today to the one on Monroe Falls Avenue in Cuyahoga Falls:


Once you pull in, as with most drive-in places, you turn your lights on for service and decide what you want from the menu posted on the wall:


They have your usual fare, burgers, dogs, and chicken sandwiches. Today I was in the mood for two things: a coney dog and a mug of frosty cold root beer. While perusing the menu, I also noticed that they sell kraut dogs. Well, damn, that sounded good, too! When my waitress hustled over to take my order, I got one of each.

Here is the window tray she brought back just a few minutes later:


Can't you just already taste that wonderful root beer?


Since I was doing the knee balancing trick for my photographs, I decided to take a swig out of the mug to make it a little more stable. Yummmm! Sweet and creamy, this brought instant memories of my youth to mind. Nothing in a can or 2-liter bottle can even come close to this. Next time I go back, I may just have to guild the lily even more and get a scoop of vanilla ice cream to make the ultimate concoction, the root beer float.

On to the dogs! I have to say that both hot dogs were very moist. When you keep meat in a hot water bath until service, sometimes that can actually dry out the dogs. Not in this case. Both versions of the dog were absolutely juicy and tender.

The coney dog was first:


The coney sauce was excellent, similar to a Sloppy Joe type consistency, but actually the meat was a bit more finely ground. It had a lovely saltiness and spiciness that worked well with the sweetness of the root beer.

Finally, the kraut dog:


When I first bit into it, I was surprised to discover the presence of black pepper in the kraut. The salt and acid of the kraut were well controlled. The overall balance on this dog was pretty darn good, given that it was just a hot dog with sauerkraut on it. Honestly, the thought of a coney dog was what brought me in to B & K, but I left equally as impressed with the kraut dog.

Next time you are in the mood for a really good coney or kraut dog or just want to indulge in a wonderful treat like the root beer, I recommend you check out one of the several Akron locations of B & K to get your fill. Nostalgia can sometimes make you overlook a mediocre experience, but in this case, it just proved how good it was all along.