Junk Food Nation, growing up in a small town in upstate New York, we had all sorts of small-towney things… Friday night high school football, homecoming bonfires, that little ice cream shop where the cute girl behind the counter would dip your large soft serve into magic shell, the downtown bakery where cupcakes were 25 cents, and, a town favorite, fish fry dinners.

Fish fry dinners would take place at the local Knights of Columbus, where townspeople could go by an purchase a styrofoam box loaded with fried fish, french fries, tartar sauce and maybe a little thing of cole slaw.  I miss those days. Of course, the fish fry was part of the whole Catholic don’t-eat-meat-on-Fridays deal, but to me it was just good eatin’.

So when I saw the Captain Jac Fish & Chips All-In-One-Meal bag, I knew I had to try it.  Conundrum – is fish and chips junk food? Answer – by consuming the entire bag, one intakes 1,240 calories and about 72% of daily saturated fat allowance.  Yep, I think this fried one-stop-shop bag qualifies.

The Money Shot

Captain Jac has no website I could find, so that’s a positive start, and its parent company Trident Seafoods doesn’t really have much product description. So all I can tell you about Captain Jac Fish & Chips is what you see above…

…OOOO PRETTY COLORS!

One step towards pill-form

I like the idea of a one-stop-meal-shop.  Fish & chips are a great meal, so why not package them together. Even better, they cook for the same amount of time at the same temperature?  How much more brainless does it get?  I guess some dope out there might forget to take the product out of the toxic plastic bag, but still – until meals come in pill-form (I’M WAITING, FUTURE), this is the next best thing.

Love the little accent of green in the tartar sauce

Well, this product LOOKS good on the cover. All crispy-like.

Two-step gluttony

Idiot-proof instructions, right?  I like Step 3 the best – Serve and Enjoy. I will enjoy them, because I’ll be serving them…to myself.

Why the newspaper?

You know, I hate the fact that you see the fish and chips served in newspaper here.  When is that ok? NEWSPAPERS are FILTHY!  I never understood scenes in movies where you’d see the butcher hand over raw meat wrapped in newspaper.  Great, now I have to wash the crap out of this steak, and still worry about ink poisoning.

Don’t even get me started about people who read newspapers and handle sandwiches.  I will punch you.

That looks...appetizing

Inside the outside package are two little packages…MMMMM.  Plasticy.

Does packaging them separately matter?  I guess if you don’t want the potatoes infused with any residual fish flavor…but aren’t they going to be cooking on the same greased down baking sheet?  Why make things difficult, Captain Jac?

Frozen fish...

I followed the instructions, and DUMPED the contents out onto my baking pan.  Everything appeared to be pre-cooked, of course.  Because nothing says fresh and tasty like frying up pollock filets and sliced potatoes, and then freezing that shit down, throwing them into plastic bags, and shipping them across the country to be warmed in your crappy oven.  Healthy.

Before….and…..

...FRIED FISH!

AFTER! See? They look totally different once cooked.  More…yellow.

Crusty goodness

Up close, you can just see the dripping oily goodness.  The fish looked crisp, and (hopefully) thoroughly cooked.

Crispy wedges

The wedge fries in the meal have that nice potato skin on the rounded edges, which is a important texture detail. If I’m going to have overly preserved frozen fries that are baked into a crusty oily form, I like to pretend they are fresh cut.

Of course, Frank's Red Hot

Everything on both sides, fish and fries, seemed to come out well done – no parts of the meal were ice cold in center, while the outsides were burning hot (I’m looking at you, Hot Pockets). The 450 for 30 formula worked.

The best part about putting these fish and chips on a plain white plate – the patches of orange and yellow oil and miraculously appear without even trying!  Yummy.  Of course, I needed my Frank’s Red Hot to compliment this fried/baked treat.

Flaky fish...nicely cooked

The fried pollock filets were actually pretty tasty, and the fries were standard – good crisp, hot, and plenty of salt.  Despite being pre-packed, everything, once heated, wasn’t TOO far off from fresh fish fry consistency.  What I didn’t like: the filets and fries kept on oozing oil even after they finished baking. Yikes. Definitely not a positive.  Also not a positive: what it did to my digestive system.

Not bad, Captain Jac.  But…not great.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy