The Oyster Bar is one of Little Rock’s signature joints. When we lived here before it had always been on my list of places to eat, but I just never got around to it. Tonight, based on the urging of Jodie and Laney, we got around to it.

The first thing you notice upon entering is the smell of grease. Make that the smell of grease that has had something fried in it. The menu is heavy on fried creatures that live in the water. That’s cool with me. The restaurant building is wonderfully shabby inside and out. The murals on the outside wall look like they were painted by a third-grader. That’s a compliment, not a criticism. They plywood floor is black, probably from countless trips by wait staff tracking grease from the kitchen. You’re not getting dressed up to go to this place. That’s perfect for a rambunctious 2.5-year-old. We had no qualms about letting her dance and hop all around our table.

Gina and I each had the fried shrimp po’ boy sandwich. The shrimp were just right: crispy on the outside but not overdone inside. Unfortunately, the sandwiches come standard with coleslaw, which I didn’t notice on the menu. Coleslaw is hampered by two things: cabbage and mayonnaise. Whoever came up with idea of putting coleslaw on barbeque and shrimp po’ boys was a poor chef in my book. I scraped the slaw off, slathered on some house cocktail sauce and enjoyed the sandwich. I’ve yet to find a house cocktail sauce that comes close to the Uncle Slappy’s Shut Yo Mouth variety. The Oyster Bar kept that streak alive. I could find no evidence in the stuff of black pepper, the magic ingredient to a good cocktail sauce. I have to give the place credit for including on the condiment bar all the makings for Uncle Slappy’s delectable accompaniment, but a recent dressing-down I received from a fellow foodie about making my own caused me to stick with the house brand.

The Oyster Bar is a pretty good taste of the Gulf Coast, complee with Zapp’s potato chips. I imagine I’m going to make up for waiting so long to try this place.

With a contingent of family in town for the Christmas thing, we went to the Flying Fish in the Little Rock River Market district for some lunch. It’s a chain but it has pretty good catfish. I had what the menu calls the catfish poor boy loaf. It was just your regular po’ boy sandwich. I don’t know what the loaf part is all about. I’m a fan of catfish and central Arkansas is loaded with catfish places.

The Flying Fish is a very popular joint and the food is good. The catfish was crispy on the outside but not overcooked on the inside, although the batter was a little bland. I got some of their cocktail sauce to juice up the flavor a bit, but it, too, was bland for my taste. Not to worry, though, I found a tiny plastic crock of horseradish on the table and I was able to whip up a small batch of my Uncle Slappy’s Shut Yo Mouth Cocktail Sauce(TM). I half-filled one of those paper condiment containers with ketchup, added about half as much horseradish, squeezed in some fresh lemon juice, scooped out the lemon seeds, splashed in some worcestershire sauce and then tossed in the secret ingredient: black pepper. Compare the Uncle Slappy’s with the ketchup dominated Flying Fish stuff. You can almost taste it, can’t you?

I gave them small props for the black pepper in theirs.

The walls are covered with fish. Fish in pictures, mounted fish and those singing bass that were all the rage a few years ago. There’s also a bunch of those signs with cutesy fishing-related bons mots. This was my favorite.

This interesting tableau is at the side door of Sticky Fingerz, which is next door to the Flying Fish.