Changes at Long John Silvers

I do not think there is any reason to think the changes will make this a RoadFood destination, but it is about time they quit deep frying everything !

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27276570/

For the life of me I can't imagine any member of RF being adverse to deep fried anything.

I've boycotted them since they quit serving "Peg Legs".

I've never eaten at a long john silvers. As far as I know there aren't any around here. But it's fast food so I wouldnt' expect it to be the epitome of healthy food

I've never eaten at LJS. It is the only one of the Yum Brands, "Long American Ken Taco Hut" that I have not been to.

That's "A&W All American Food," "Long John Silver's," "Kentucky Fried Chicken," "Taco Bell," and "Pizza Hut."

I'm trying to figure out why this isn't in the fastfood/chain section

Hmm. Time for an order of Fish & More with a few extra hushpuppies.

quote:

Originally posted by wanderingjew

I'm trying to figure out why this isn't in the fastfood/chain section

I believe it is.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Someone on another message board posted these menu items are fully prepared and shipped to the restaurants frozen. Sounds like some of those Mrs. Paul entrees you find in the supermarket frozen food section. Also, seeing the fish they are using, is the fish sourced from China? Any melamine, anti-freeze (the Austrian wine scandal), or lead (paint on children's toys) in the fish?

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty246

I've boycotted them since they quit serving "Peg Legs".

I forgot about Peg Legs!
Thanks for the memories.

quote:

Originally posted by exsquidao

For the life of me I can't imagine any member of RF being adverse to deep fried anything.

Well, then please allow me to state that I am most definitely AVERSE to deep fried food, or at least I am averse to the deep fried stuff at fast food joints. Occasionally, I will make my own French Fries at home, using fresh expeller-pressed canola oil.

Unfortunately, I have no idea exactly what type of shortening or oil is used by most fast food places, nor do I know how recently that oil was changed. Trust me--this does make a difference in regard to your health.

quote:

Originally posted by David_NYC

Someone on another message board posted these menu items are fully prepared and shipped to the restaurants frozen. Sounds like some of those Mrs. Paul entrees you find in the supermarket frozen food section. Also, seeing the fish they are using, is the fish sourced from China? Any melamine, anti-freeze (the Austrian wine scandal), or lead (paint on children's toys) in the fish?

Not pre-made. They drown everything in tubs of batter before the fryer. It looks pretty messy.

From what I read, they are not going to fry these and they do not dip the fish in batter. They must be going to use one of those high-tech ovens to heat these. They have a flash-heavy web site with pictures and nuitrition data. You have to click "Menu" and "Nuitrition" at the top of their home page:
http://www.freshsidegrille.com

I was at LJS the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they still had lobster bites. I know it's langostina or something, not real lobster, but they're awfully tasty for something mass produced:)

I tried two of their new fish tacos the other day. You can get them with breaded or unbreaded fish, I had one of each and really didn't prefer one over the other. I suppose I would pick the unbreaded for less calories. They do have a somewhat spicy sauce on them which is ok. All in all not bad but pretty average.

Salmon at LJS? That would be like steak at McDonald's. LJS should go back 20 or so years ago when they were a good fast food fish and chips chain and the fish actually looked liked fish and wasn't cut in that diamond pattern they use now. And yes, bring back the peg legs and the oysters.

Andrea

Why is this new menu selection so revolutionary? Captain D's has had broiled entrees for several years.

I've been trying to figure out what the point is. If I want broiled actual fish, I do not choose LJS much like if I want angus beef I do not choose Burger King. The entire point of eating at LJS is to get sub-par, virtually tasteless, deep-fried pieces of "fish", "crab" and "shrimp". No one has ever walked in there expecting to get healthy, quality seafood.

Screw healthy, give me a pound of hushpuppies.

Hello All,
I don't want to think about LJS
since they dropped the Peg Legs.
Take Care,
Fieldthistle

quote:

Originally posted by David_NYC

Someone on another message board posted these menu items are fully prepared and shipped to the restaurants frozen. Sounds like some of those Mrs. Paul entrees you find in the supermarket frozen food section. Also, seeing the fish they are using, is the fish sourced from China? Any melamine, anti-freeze (the Austrian wine scandal), or lead (paint on children's toys) in the fish?

I was shocked yesterday to find out the 4 oz cans of "garden*rite*" stems and pieces mushrooms I bought on special at a Save-A-Lot supermarket in Georgetown OH are products of China and distributed by Alliance Foods Inc of Coldwater MI.

They are a good bit more reasonable than US bottled/canned brands and taste the same.

I LIKE Long John Silvers's!
I spent a couple decades away from them and now that they finally exist in Milwaukee, I like getting there on a regular basis.
Although it is a tad weird seeing LJS having to live a conjoined existence with Taco Bell, the Baja Blast Mt Dew supplied by TJ is a nice accompaniment to the fish.
Yes, I know deep frying destroys the nutritional oils that make fish Good For You.  But I eat the stuff because I'm hungry and it is tasty.  And with my limited budget, a good value for the moolah.

At ate LJS's in the 70's.  Loved the deep fried oysters.  Nothing like that in Los Angeles.  I believe I'd eat there once in awhile if close by.

I also like fried fish which I used to be able to get at HSalt's.  

I like Fast Food Fried Fish places, but they don't seem to exist anymore in the Los Angeles area.

Bring them back!

NYPIzzaNut

[id=quote font="arial, helvetica"]quote: Originally posted by David_NYC

Someone on another message board posted these menu items are fully prepared and shipped to the restaurants frozen. Sounds like some of those Mrs. Paul entrees you find in the supermarket frozen food section. Also, seeing the fish they are using, is the fish sourced from China? Any melamine, anti-freeze (the Austrian wine scandal), or lead (paint on children's toys) in the fish?

I was shocked yesterday to find out the 4 oz cans of "garden*rite*" stems and pieces mushrooms I bought on special at a Save-A-Lot supermarket in Georgetown OH are products of China and distributed by Alliance Foods Inc of Coldwater MI.

They are a good bit more reasonable than US bottled/canned brands and taste the same.

I think many, if not all, of your canned mushrooms have been outsourced to China.
 
In fact, unless if the Amish recently moved to China, I think the Pennsylvania Dutch Brand in the interest of truth in advertising should have changed their name. Instead they put a big splash on their label proclaiming they are "America's Favorite Mushroom"!  The country of origin on the side of the label tells us just where they came from. Our politicians seems to have adopted the word  "transparency" as their favorite buzzword of 2008. I'm going to write mine and ask that, in the interest of "transparency" the country of origin is in the same font size as any other font size used on the package. I won't hold my breath. How can a person find out where fast food ingredients come from, especially seafood.

I used to work part-time at Long John Silver's around 15 years ago.   So ... take what I'm going to post with a grain of salt because things may have changed (quite a few times) since I worked there.

But ...  "back in the day" ... nothing came pre-battered or pre-cooked.  

Shrimp:   Shrimp came in large, frozen packs.    We had to defrost the shrimp by running them under cold water, "butterfly" slicing them, then arranging them on platters so the cooks could grab each one by the tail, dunk it in the batter bucket, and throw them in the fryer.

Chicken:   In our area (central Illinois) they still sell "peg legs" ... only they are simply called "chicken" now.   Same taste.   In any case ... chicken came in pre-cut tenderloins which were defrosted and dunked in the batter bucket.

Fish:   Now, here's where things are a little dicey.   The fish came in long, rectangular-ish blocks.   It IS real fish (or at least was) ... but it pressed into those long, parallelogram bricks.   We would cut the blocks into pieces, arrange on platters, once again so the cooks could dunk them and fry them.
 
Batter:   The batter came in large, paper bags.   We ripped them open, dumped them into metal pails, added a set amount of water and whisked until they were lump free.   I have no IDEA what's in that batter ... but, in retrospect, I wish I would've taken a few bags with me when I left.

Let's see ... anything else?   Corn?   Corn came in those little cobbette forms which are dumped into water and left to simmer.   When you ask for one, we rolled it un a butter/oil sauce and stuck it in a bag.   If you came and asked for corn when we were low or out, they were micro-waved in a pinch.   

Clams?   Obviously, I was wrong earlier ... clams DID come pre-battered.   LOL   We did NOT individually batter the clams.    They no longer had oysters when I worked there ... and they phased out a few "crab salad" items just as I started. 

I do remember they tried having a few "baked" items when I was there.   I believe there were a couple "baked cod" options that involved a baked potato (microwaved), green beans (microwaved) and maybe a roll?   I can't remember much about those ... although I do know they used the same fish we cut off the blocks and simply sprinkled some kind of lemon butter crumb mixture on top.

People always said once I worked at LJS that I'd never want to eat their food again.   Well ... honestly, I did see some pretty greasy, scungy floors.   BUT ... I still love their food.

Want to know a secret?   The best food they will NEVER serve you are fries that are dunked in that batter.    Honestly, you only need three or four.   They fry up huge ... and are like HEAVEN ON EARTH!   :)

As a kid, we used to call this place "Long Dong Silver", after some 70s porn star of the same name. I doubt that we created the name, and I am sure that all teenage kids have called the place that, especially if they ever worked there.

My friend used to work there as a teenager. One year, his Long Dong Silver was open on Thanksgiving Day, in which, according to him, they had no customers. Imagine that. Basically he sat around for a couple of hours and did nothing.

The only thing out of that place I like are the hushpuppies, and possibly the cole slaw. Almost everything else in there is fried. It seems that the corporate offices of Long Dong Silver are trying new things, but Dong has a bad reputation with people who want to eat healthier.

 I didn't go back thru all the posts here, so please pardon any duplication. We have both 'styles' of LJS food stands...The stand-alone and the duplex that is a combo of A&W and LJS. While I like the frosty mug of A&W RootBeer (Real Glass Mugs) available there, I still prefer the Captain D's Seafood over the LJS. Captain D's seems to be less greasy and tends to hold it's "crispness" a bit longer. The FF's at both places are not the best quality and seem almost tasteless, but the fish and shrimp at Captain D's (and the stuffed crabshells make it a better choice for us...when we are in the mood for "cheap" seafood here in Southern Indiana.
     If we have time, or want to step up there are several decent seafood restaurants in the Louisville area. Cheddar's (the chain restaurant) has a great Catfish Dinner for $9 that has 8 large pieces of Catfish on it and offers several choices for sides that includes a gumbo-like Red Beans and Rice item that is very good.

Hello All,
Once Long John Silvers dropped the Peg Legs, I boycotted it.
In the Fast Food Forums, I bored everyone with my references
to the wonderfulness of the Peg Legs and my war against
LJS until they brought Peg Legs back.
But this thread, and my daughter who loves LJS, sent me back, ...
and I ate the chicken planks.....Gosh, how I missed the salty taste
and crunchiness of their batter. 
My jihad against Long John Silver's is over.
If enjoying the battered chicken planks is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Take Care,
Fieldthistle

LOL ... if it makes you feel any better, Fieldthistle ... I refuse to call them "planks" ... when I order them, I call them Peg Legs and somehow they manage to put chicken in there every time!   LOL

Their batter really does taste great.   For me, the problem is that you can never count on the quality around my area.  You may go to LJS one day and have the most amazing shrimp or fish or chicken ever ... then again, you may go and the food will be so SOAKED in grease that it's nearly inedible.  

It doesn't seem to matter which location you visit either.   The one by my husband's work is better overall ... although you can still get a nasty, greasy bunch now and then.   The one by work is the polar opposite ... you may get a good lunch now and then ... but you go expecting to use a crate of napkins to soak up the grease.

What are you going to do?   There are no Cap'n D's in our area ... so if you are craving shrimp ... you're pretty much stuck.

We also referred to Captain D's as "Captain Disease."

They are advertising "London style fish and chips" here. Has anyone tried them? And... what is "London Style" anyway???
Joe

I've never had Captain D's or Arthur Treacher's, so I don't know how they would stack up. (Of course, it doesn't help that our last Arthur Treacher's closed up a year ago, and we only had one Captain D's for about a couple months.)

Our local LJS is combined with a very small KFC, and may possibly be the smallest building in the world that's home to two fast food places. Last time I was there, everything was mushy and undercooked. I asked for my money back. Yet, the next-nearest LJS, in Bay City, has been almost absurdly consistent in quality. Greasy and crispy, and probably a zillion grams of fat, but it still has a "fresh" taste to it. Not bland at all. Strangely, though, I never see ANYONE else in this restaurant when I'm there.

PapaJoe8


They are advertising "London style fish and chips" here. Has anyone tried them? And... what is "London Style" anyway???
Joe

london style could be scary, if they really are going for authenticity.... i had fish and chips in london once, i don't remember the name of the chip shop.. the fish was a whole battered fillet, with the skin and bones included, and was extremely greasy as it was deep-fried in beef fat. the chips were also fried in beef fat, but were much better than the fish. then there was something called mushy peas served on the side, which could best be described as bitter green mush with the consistency of mashed potato..

I would love a three piece fish right now, one extra piece of fish, hushpuppies and keep the cole slaw. A few extra of the little crumbies they throw in there would be nice also.

Over twenty years ago we had LJS in my area, it was a pretty good place to go for fish and chips. Not so today. About two years ago I was in Joliet, IL. got a take out fish and chips from LJS, nothing short of terrible. The 'fish' was a glob of deep fried batter with a tiny piece of 'mystery fish' about the size of a quarter. The fries a were OK but I threw the rest out. Worse than bad.
 
 
In the late 60s we had an Authur Treacher's Fish and Chips that was absolutely fantastic! You could get malt vinegar on your fish if you wanted and it was two nice pieces of real fish. It's been gone for many years, I wish we had that kind fish and chips around here today.
 

 
 

I don't think we have the "London Style" fish and chips here, but maybe they douse it in malt vinegar?   Whenever I get the fish or clams there, I always ask for extra packets of malt vinegar.  In reality, our local LJS is not that bad (it's combined with an A&W) but it's still a mere shadow of what LJS used to be. 

Andrea