5621 Airport Blvd, 454-5827
Mon-Sat, 8am-7pm When it comes to seafood, you want to get as close to the source as possible.
In a perfect world, we’d be able to buy a fish straight off the boat, while
it’s still fresh enough to have a personality. Failing that, the
near-perfect place would be a neighborhood fish market — maybe one that serves
lunch.
Bingo. Sometime since their opening in 1938, Eaves Brothers Quality Seafood
got the bright idea to put a kitchen in the back, haul in a dozen tables, and
cook the seafood they sell. Nothing fancy, just an assortment of traditional
seafood (catfish, shrimp, oysters, hand-stuffed crab) cooked fresh and served
with a minimum of side orders. The portions are sizable and the prices
reasonable — perfect for a midday meal.
Most of Quality’s menu items come in traditional VFW dinner form —
hand-battered, fried, and served with slaw, hush puppies, and fries. The
portions, in addition to being insanely fresh, show complete disregard for
traditional restaurant portion control practices. The fried shrimp easily earn
their “jumbo” designation, and are butterflied before cooking. The
nutritionally virtuous can indulge guilt-free with juicy broiled turbot or
blackened snapper dinners and a squeeze of lemon (same sides apply). The cooks
work with fish all day and the experience pays off on the plate. On certain
floating dates (call ahead), head cook Jeff Boyce cooks up a special soup in
addition to their chunky seafood/okra gumbo and shrimp creole. If you’re lucky,
you’ll be on hand for his sherry-spiked turtle soup, served about every other
Friday.
— Paul M. Johnson
This article appears in November 10 • 1995 and November 10 • 1995 (Cover).