http://www.charliesfreshseafood.com/
It’s pretty easy to overlook Charlie’s Market.
Located off Winchester Road, it’s situated on a plot that’s easy to miss driving out of Lexington, and essentially invisible coming into town.
The parking lot can hold maybe six cars, and if you are able to pull in you’ll probably find it difficult to get back into traffic.
The building itself is unassuming, with its dark red exterior, completely void of all pretensions concerning a fancy meal. Hell, if half the sign fell down, you could mistake it for a hardware store.
Charlie’s does one thing and one thing only: seafood. Whether it’s crawfish, clams, shrimp or crab, Charlie’s is known around town as the place to get the best damn fish sandwich in town.
It’s just a fried whitefish filet on a bun, and yet it just works perfectly. Here, simplicity leads to perfection. If you’re looking for something for the foodie in you, go somewhere else; Charlie’s is the place for your stomach, not your brain…uh, except for that whole “fish is brain food” thing.
In fact that’s my dilemma with reviewing this place: Look at how I just described it. Pretty hipsterish, right? I hate myself for typing that, however there really is no other way to explain Charlie’s; it’s simple, and it’s delicious.
Every meal comes with your choice of fries, coleslaw and hush puppies. I always make sure to take the hush puppies, as they’re easily the best I’ve ever had. They go heavy on the onion with these, and they’re a little overcooked, which is how I like them.
The fish itself is just fried fish. No real seasoning added to the batter, but boy are the portions plentiful. One crawfish platter filled up my entire styrofoam container. It came with three ramekins of cocktail sauce to boot, so for about $12, I got:
A large container’s worth of crawfish
A Large portion of fries
Five Hush Puppies
Three things of cocktail sauce
A small cup of coleslaw
Trust me, it’s a lot of food.
If you’re just looking for something cheap and good, check out Charlies over on Winchester Road. You’ll be happy you made the drive.
Overall – B
