Saturday, March 15, 2008

A new benchmark for Fish & Chips

I like my food. While in Europe a few years ago, i fell in love with British style Fish & Chips. The freshness of the fish, the oily goodness of the chips. It was perfect street food. The problem is, I have never been able to find a reasonable offering here in Los Angeles. H. Salt Fish & Chips is disgusting. The Yard House in Long Beach makes a reasonable attempt at the fish, but the chips are nasty. For years I suffered without a decent fish & chips option. But that's all over now - I have found my fish & chips benchmark. The olde ship British Pub and Restaurant in Fullerton is a fish & chips paradise offering food that tastes as if it were shipped in fresh from the U.K.

I visited the old ship last weekend with my wife. We had a hard time finding it do to a self-inflicted google maps error. Parking was difficult, we found a place off the alley. It would have been difficult to park during the lunch or dinner rush. We were fortunate enough to have the place to ourselves. The staff was attentive, we were greeted well and served promptly. The beer was good. I felt at home.
Fullers London Pride
- Deep golden amber colour, hints of treacle toffee with a digestive biscuit flavour coming through. The hops contribute grapefruit flavours to the beer giving it zesty character. London Pride is a smooth and astonishingly complex beer with a distinctive malty base complemented by a rich balance of well-developed hop flavors from the Target, Challenger and Northdown varieties. ABV 4.7%
I ordered my fish & chips and the waited. My foodgasm started about 8 minutes after I placed my order. I was taken back to my first taste of this wonderful food on the streets of Birmingham. The fish & chips were that good. My wife and I ate in silence. The sounds of eating were the only noises we made - except for "are you going to eat that?"

We (well... I really) finished with Sticky Toffee Pudding. You must try it.

I had a foodgasm today too, my first real bowl of pho. But more on that later...

6 comments:

jamon said...

Sounds delightful - good fish and chips are hard enough to find even in Blighty these days. Our local chippy compensates for crapness with volume.

I swear, we can feed the whole family with one portion.

vjack said...

Dammit! Now I'm hungry, and its only 9:30 AM!

Unknown said...

Mmm. There's a reasonable chippy in Brooklyn, and a half-way decent on Greenwich St in Manhattan. I made a point of having a good steak-and-onion pie and chips while in England, recently. :-)

I'll be looking out for that chippy when I make LA on my cross-country motorcycle trip! :-)

Carolyn Ann

lellybilly said...

Hi!! I fell in love with fish and chips in New Zealand. I'd never had anything like it before and I ordered it everywhere we went. Unfortunately I can't have deep fried foods anymore without getting sick. =(

Anyway, how are you?? Jon and I are having our 5 year anniversary on Tuesday!

Anonymous said...

I just spent the morning looking for recipes for New Zealand style fish and chips....no luck. Yesterday, my wife and I ate at a small seafood shack in Gulf Sores Alabama called "The Wheelhouse" where I had the second best fried fish of my life; the first being the Walleye at "The Hot Fish Shop" in Winona,Minnesota!
The shop is owned by a man from New Zealand and his american wife. I tried to get the basics to his batter recipe, but he said it was a very guarded secret, known by four people...two of whom are in New Zealand.
A beer batter type, crusty and crunch textured coating was quite yellowish in color under the golden brown surface. I suspect mustard as the color source, but I wouldn't say I could tase mustard. Any suggestions that may lead to breaking the recipe code would be appreciated. The roof of my mouth is still a bit burn't from eating the very hot fish too fast. I will return there for another fix tomorrow!

Mojoey said...

I must admit jealousy. I need a fish and chips fix.