Who needs a dinner date when Automatic Seafood’s fried fish collar requires so much attention?
When the crispy fish collar at Automatic Seafood in Birmingham, Alabama landed on my table last week with its fins fried into an outstretched position, as though it had flown over, it was accompanied by a look of concern from my server. “Is someone else sitting with you?” he asked hopefully. “Just in the restroom?” Someone else was not. I understood his unease; the thing was hulking—and I had also ordered a Caesar salad with breadcrumbs and a lemony-anchovy vinaigrette, and a plate of tuna tartare topped with ikura and creme fraiche. He needn’t have worried, though. From the moment I cracked into the crackly, vaguely sticky shell of the fish collar, which had been battered in a spiced blend of rice flour and tapioca starch and topped with an elegant little cluster of onion and pepper, it was impossible to stop tearing fried strips of tender fish from its bone structure until I was left scraping at only skeleton. I had been warned the dish from Muscle Shoals native chef Adam Evans would be an “interactive,” experience, which turned out to be the best part; all of my favorite foods are best eaten by hand.
Automatic Seafood, 2824 5th Ave S, Birmingham, AL 35233.