Murray W.
Yelp
Halifax being the type of city that it is (port, with a colonial British-centric background), there's a lot of fish and chips here. Even pizza places have it as a menu fixture! And with that comes even more opinions on who serves the best. Truth be told, a third is going to be average, if you're lucky. The bulk of the rest is worse than forgettable; so mushy or overcooked that you'd prefer to forget it and it went back to the freezer from whence it came, but its awfulness has scarred your taste buds' memories.
Evan's, however, is a humble place just across the harbour (and I mean *just*), that consistently comes up when the best fish and chips joints in the city are being discussed. Located right in Alderney Landing, it's owned by a fishing family, so that's a big feather in their cap of legitimacy (it's the latest fashion).
While slowly whittling down my list of restaurants to try out for the first time, I decided to take the ferry over to Evan's on a cool, but sunny, winter day. Not being particularly familiar with the complex, I took an embarrassingly long time to find the place, so the easy directions for others is just go left once you're off the ferry. Not up any steps, just keep going left. Learn from my shame. I planned my trip to arrive after the lunch rush would be over, so there was no line and just a couple of the tables that were occupied in the food court-ish set up.
To no one's surprise, their compact menu is honed in on seafood, with the likes of fish and chips, scallops, lobster rolls and lobster poutine. Given the way this review started, it will also come as no surprise that I went with the fish and chips, although just one piece so that I wouldn't put myself in a fried food-coma. After ordering at the counter, I sat down and took in the nice view across the harbour.
My food was brought out in fairly quick order. The fish was a respectable size and the pile of hand-cut fries was healthy (figuratively) as well. I knew what I was getting into when it came to the style of fish here at Evan's - they use a gluten free breading instead of my preferred beer batter. That said it was crispy, and the fish was super fresh, although a little thin compared to most places. The fries were quite crispy for hand-cut ones, and the tartar sauce was so good that I was dipping my fries in it.
While a breaded piece of fish will never be the best of the best in my books, this was a fine entry and they know what they're doing at Evan's. Bonus points for a menu that is mostly gluten free, which is nice for a type of food that typically isn't accessible to people with celiac.