Lake Trout

After living in Baltimore for 3 years, I finally tasted its ubiquitous fast food – the Lake Trout. Lake Trout is typically breaded, deep-fried white fish served either alone or between two slices of white bread, often with fries on the side. Sounds a little like fish and chips, right? Not at all. In fact, Lake Trout doesn’t come from a lake, nor is it even trout. Lake Trout is actually Atlantic Whiting, a white fish caught in the Atlantic. Whiting is plentiful and less expensive than lake trout, which are actually quite rare. The most convincing reason for the misnomer was that restaurants featuring the fish decided that the name “Lake Trout” was more appealing than “Atlantic Whiting,” was to customers.


There are numerous restaurants and joints that feature Lake Trout on their menu in Baltimore, the closest to me being Sea Blue on Greenmount Avenue. This carry-out only place is a tiny blue wooden building on a street corner. There is no indoor seating, and only a window from which to order your food. Along with Lake Trout, Sea Blue offers other fried specialties such as wings and chicken tenders. This was my one and only chance to order Lake Trout, so I went for it. My order arrived unpretentiously in a box – two pieces of Lake Trout served on top on shoestring fries. The Lake Trout was seasoned with spices, giving the otherwise tasteless fish a bit of flavor. However, because I had no expectations as to how good Lake Trout should taste, it was impossible to be truly disappointed.

Perhaps I should have tried King's Fried Chicken, another Greenmount area restaurant that also serves lake trout. I have heard of other places in town that can serve up a really good Lake Trout, including The Roost on Reisterstown Road. Reviews say that The Roost’s Lake Trout is thick, lightly breaded and surprisingly not greasy.

Lake Trout is not something I can eat everyday, but when I do eat it, it gives me a sense of the place and character that is Baltimore.