Ross’ Hooked & Cooked
Rating: 
Ross’ Hooked & Cooked serves southern-style comfort foods, focusing on fish. The restaurant is located in a rough part of town. It’s actually one of the better looking establishments in the area, although that isn’t saying much. After visiting their website which mentions “fine dining” and “ambiance,” I had rather high expectations. The moment I saw the restaurant’s name was misspelled (”Ross’s”, see right) on their street-side sign, I knew I may be in for a let down.
Arman, Hiran, and I decided to start off with an order of fried okra ($4, below). Nearly thirty minutes later, our appetizer arrived. I don’t know about you, but where I work, they don’t give us two hour lunch breaks. I expect that restaurants would be mindful of that on weekdays during lunch. We ate only about half of the okra, which had an uninspired breading and lacked flavor. 
While Hiran and I stared at the remaining okra, Arman noted that one of unused forks on the table had a dried rice kernel stuck in between its tines–nice!
About fifteen minutes later our meals arrived. Arman got the Blackened Catfish Sandwich with red beans and rice ($9, below-left). It was served on regular sandwich-sliced multi-grain bread. I’ve never seen such a thing. That type of dish calls for a restaurant-quality bread; a French bread would have worked fine. Furthermore, Arman showed me the catfish (which looked like a decent cut), and it didn’t appear blackened at all. Either they don’t know how to blacken meat, or they gave him the regular grilled catfish on accident. I tried a bit of his red beans and rice, and they were without a doubt the most bland beans I’ve ever tried, which I don’t get. I’ve had southern-style red beans and rice several times, and they are always flavorful, if not spicy. I hardly tasted even a hint of salt in this recipe.
Hiran got the 2 Piece Fried Chicken Lunch with red beans and rice ($9, above-right). He quite liked the chicken, but obviously wasn’t crazy about the beans/rice. It also came with corn bread, but being diabetic, he offered it to me. The corn bread was satisfactory.
I went with the BBQ Beef Brisket Sandwich with macaroni and cheese ($5, right). Again, it was served on the basic sandwich bread. What the heck? This was a self-proclaimed “upscale” restaurant, not a deli! On my first bite into the sandwich, literally half of the sliced brisket came out because I couldn’t bite through or even tear it. The brisket was well cooked and tasted good, but it was extremely fatty and couldn’t be eaten properly in a sandwich. I could have lived with the fatty meat, but they should have served it chopped so I could eat it without looking like a complete animal with large slices of meat dangling out of my mouth. I finished the sandwich, but left a few bites of mac and cheese on my plate, as it wasn’t very good.
As far as the quality of the ingredients used, none of it was particularly bad. The issues were in the execution. With a better cook and better sandwich bread, the meal quite possibly could have been enjoyable. However, the poor execution coupled with the untimely service and dirty fork led to an experience I’d rather forget.
Ross’ Hooked & Cooked
1301 E. Broadway Rd.
Phoenix, AZ 85040
phone: (602) 268-7677
hours: Tu-W 12-8, Th-Sat 12-9, Sun 12-5, Closed Mondays
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