Round 4: Arby’s vs Long John Silver’s

The tournament so far: Introduction | Local Qualifier | Regional Qualifier | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3

Friday was my birthday. I normally like to enjoy the sort of trivial nature of celebrating another year of not dying through somewhat flippant and excessively festive group meals — typically birthday lunch with friends and birthday dinner with my wife, and maybe friends too. But as time has gone by and I’ve consistently celebrated my birthday in this way, I’ve kind of grown to anticipate these meals in a way that has basically come full circle from my youth, where the irony is gone and I honestly enjoy the fruits of making a bigger-than-necessary event out of birthday lunch and birthday dinner.

But this year, my birthday fell on a Friday, and I have this stupid fast-food fish sandwich tournament. And I’ve come too far to abandon it now, even if it meant I was really annoyed with my February self for committing me to this idea. So I let my wife choose which she’d rather eat — Arby’s or Long John Silver’s — and that (Long John Silver’s) because our romantic birthday dinner, and the leftover was the “Hey friends, come join me for my birthday lunch!” lunch (Arby’s).

Arby’s Fish Sandwich
My first reaction was “this is big and cheap,” because it’s big and it’s cheap. The whole combo, with 20 ounce drink and sizable order of curly fries, is only $3.99. I was not going into this meal expecting much, because I feel like Arby’s tries to stray too much from its roast beef roots with bad results. It’s like they’re insecure about being really good at fast food roast beef sandwiches, so they’re constantly adding things that seem weird for a roast beef place to offer. Obviously, the fish sandwich doesn’t fall into that category, because part of the subtext in this tournament is that these places are offering something that deviates from their norm (to varying degrees). But I guess my point is that, based on my experience with non-roast beef items at Arby’s, I wasn’t going into this with high hopes.

In a lot of ways, their fish sandwich reminds me of Runza’s. Like Runza, the fillet is long and shaped like it came from a fish. It also includes shredded lettuce and a fluffy sesame seed bun. The tartar sauce is runnier than typical tartar, and it was described by my co-diner Chris as resembling a combination of mayonnaise and ranch. Unlike Runza, the Arby’s fish sandwich does not include cheese. I’m okay with that. I’ve grown to accept it, but the combination still seems weird to me.

The breading on the fish itself is very soft and the fillet is lightly fried, serving as a stark contrast to the crusty shell of Bronco’s and Hardee’s offerings. A stronger exterior could’ve come in handy because the structural integrity of this sandwich was disastrous. All around the table, everyone’s sandwiches were falling apart. Before long, it was like eating fried fish nuggets that had pieces of soggy bread stuck to them.

Most of my friends thought it was a pretty decent sandwich, and for the price, I think it was good enough. If it’s as cheap as this, I feel like it doesn’t need to impress as much on the other fronts. But I wasn’t very impressed on any fronts, and I concluded my meal by saying that Arby’s made this round pretty easy on Long John Silver’s.

The aforementioned Chris told us a Neil Hamburger joke at lunch that goes like this: “Why does Arby’s put so much mayonnaise on their sandwiches? It makes it easier to flush them down the toilet.” I don’t really get the joke. I’m not sure if it’s saying that you’d just throw away the sandwich or that the mayo helps ease the rapid evacuation from the southbound spout. I also don’t think I’ve ever had a sandwich from Arby’s with mayonnaise. Maybe that’s part of the joke.

But the reason the joke stuck with me was based on interpretation #2, if you will.

Long John Silver’s
I touched on this briefly in the KLIN interview, but I was originally not going to include Long John Silver’s in the tournament. My friend Erin, who helped me put together the bracket, argued that Long John Silver’s needed to be included because they specialize in fish, and so their performance would be a kind of standard against which the other participants would be judged. Made sense to me.

I think I also mentioned this on the radio, but I’ve long had an informal rule that I eat there once a year. Usually about this time each year, when fast food fish sandwich options are on my mind, I think “Long John Silver’s sounds really good!” Then I eat there, my gut rots, and I think “I’m never going back there again!” Then by the next year, the lesson has been forgotten, Long John Silver’s starts sounding really good again, and history repeats.

So I was pretty excited to eat there! I’m not all that familiar with the LJS menu, but there’s a giant painting of a fish sandwich on the side of the building. This, combined with my experience earlier that day at Arby’s, was making me enthusiastically hungry. My dear wife and I approached the counter and then I kind of froze. I couldn’t find a fish sandwich combo! It was all these baskets of fish and chicken and shrimp. There were so many, but none of them included sandwiches. I think I was really annoying the cashier as I stood there unable to order, because he was acting like he wanted to fight. Finally, I found the Fish Sandwich, hidden away on the value menu.

I thought Arby’s was cheap — this was only $1.59! And it was a pretty good-sized sandwich too. Visually, it reminded me a lot of the Culver’s North Atlantic Cod — a long piece of fried fish on a cornmeal-topped kaiser bun. I wouldn’t instinctively call this a “fish fillet.” It wasn’t flat — just a long, fried somewhat cylindrical slab of cod.

The fish was fried hard. In my notebook, I wrote “Really fried” and I underlined “Really.” But it was pretty tasty. There was also a great amount of tartar sauce and the shredded lettuce was quality, as shredded lettuce goes. Since this sandwich didn’t come in a meal, I ordered a side of shrimp and fries and some hush puppies. The fries were awful, the shrimp was okay and the hush puppies were decent.

The most important part came as the food interacted with my stomach. The painful gut lump developed before we had even left. We went home, where I proceeded to delay any festivities so I could sit on the couch for about 90 minutes and feel miserable.

The Verdict
Happy birthday, Stupid Neal, from Stupid Neal! I’d kick both of these sandwiches out of the tournament and replace them with previous eliminations if I could. BUT I CAN’T. I feel like I’ve said all that needs to be said about them. They go down okay, and you think it’s going to be fine, but the story doesn’t end there!

I’m giving the nod to Arby’s. As far as post-consumption reactions go, Arby’s was more intense, but also shorter in duration. I also think it’s possible that the timing was coincidental. However, I’d be a fool to interpret what happened at Long John Silver’s as anything other than what happens every time I eat at Long John Silver’s. If you don’t have gutrot from LJS, then their fish sandwich may be just the thing for you. For the price, it’s hard to beat. I envy your immunity.

March 26th will be Hardee’s versus Arby’s. What have I done?