Chippy watch.
 

Mrs Wah on our road is officially open. She's a trooper, she is. She does two sorts of pies - Clarks and Fleur de Lys. The latter is my favourite. Her battered sausages are not so great though. Her chips seem to have improved in the last 6 months or so as well. I'm not sure if she's got a new supplier or what, but they're proper greasy fuckers, not like the oily little boy penises you get in a lot of Chinese chippies.

Let's talk about your local chippy.

wut

apart from being closed today, my chippy, is generally crap. It can just about manage a decent bag of chips (£1.10 small/£1.50 large) and the saveloys (£1.30 each) aren't too bad but the sausages in batter (£1.30) are hideous. I've never trusted them enough to try their fish. Unfriendly staff, too. They insist on putting the vinegar on for you and rarely give more than a few splashes. Crap gherkins too. I usually go to the far superior Broadway Place instead, but not in these conditions.

One thing I found in London, in all the time I was living there was not a single decent chippy I could find. Plenty of decent Indians, kebabbies (and not the '8 pints of mild', back-of-a-van kebabs either) and pretty much everything else, but couldn't find a decent chippy for the life of me.

Meanwhile, at the cultural end of the world (Weston) you can't move for decent chippies.

No idea if my local is open today. They do lovely fish (I think it's shark judging by the size), but the chips always taste a bit 'heated up' to me.

The only annoyance is that they fry all the fish to order so you have to wait quite a while each time.

Big portions mind. We get two medium fish & chips to share between the four of us and there's plenty left over.

Costs about £9 for two portions. I haven't tried anything else yet (they only opened a couple of months ago), but I've got my eye on a saveloy and pickled egg.

I think it might be something to do with being closer to the coast. I always find better chip shops when I'm nearest to the seaside. I don't think this has anything to do with the freshness of the fish just that maybe more inland cities don't have that big a fish culture anymore. Olley's Fish Bar in Borough is about the best I've been to in London. The best I've been to anywhere was in Hastings, although I forget its name.

My local chippy is terrible. Small portions for extortionate prices.

Never been to a chippy. Never seen a chippy. You got a british pub here in Houston and order the fish n chips and you are gonna pay like $14

this is where I begrudgingly admit to being jealous.

it's been 20 years since I've had a decent order of fish n chips.

also missing: Vietnamese broasted chicken. okc has the 2nd highest Vietnamese population in the US, and yet, NOTHING.

Oh God, British-themed pubs! That sounds absolutely hideous. Does everyone talk Dick van Dyke cock-er-nee?

that sux flotx. cuz the viet roasted chicken is fucking amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anything termed a "pub" in USA is either British themed or actually owned by some brit. Most of them are pure shit, barely better than a Steak & Ale restaurant.

There is one near my house called the Red Lion Pub and it is very cozy. The food is priced so high, but they have a massive selection of beers and it is always full of people speaking in strange brit accents. ;)

i've been to some british themed pubs in the US. They're sort of oddly authentic, in that Wetherspoons kind of way.

Red Lion - that's a good, authentic name. If I was American, the only appeal I could see of a 'British' pub would be that most American beer tastes like watered-down AIDS, but that's hardly a decent reason. I quite like how everywhere I've been in the world has an Irish bar, and yet I've never seen an Irish bar that anywhere near resembled a bar in Ireland.

The Irish Bar near my home (and there are actually like 5 of them) looks more like a bar for fans of the Boston Celtics.

why would anyone eat
sausages in batter?

my stomach ulcer starts screaming.

who says we eat them?

I've seen it happen. I've seen things.

corn dog?

there's about 10 fish n chip shops near me but they're all owned by the same guy so there's no choice, they all sell the same things. i'm quite partial to a deep fried mars bar though.

I'll have deep fried cockroach and chips, please. :D

I'm aware of 'chippies' as a slang word for prostitutes. Obviously not what you meant but I got a kick nonetheless.

It's hard to say who has the best fries around here. I'm partial to the barter-fried spiced up variety. Garlic fries are also a favorite but rarely done well. For the most part, there all variable degree of McDonald depression.

have u ever had garlic chips with some sort of pepper jam? it is really good

the ones here serve halibut instead of cod or haddock. can you imagine! and they never heard of scraps or chip butties.

In fairness, no-one in the south has heard of scraps.

Did I ever tell you all about Hull? It's no much of a story, but they have 'American spice' on their chips, which exists only in Hull (and certainly not in America). Great chips, genuinely.

god i want chips now. i miss curry sauce and decent gravy.

when i was in nottingham they didnt understand a chip butty, there its a chip cob or something.

Heathens. Although, the lasses are easy.

fair point. they act a bit posh though, posh to me being anyone not covered in shit because i am from yorkshire obviously.

Yorkshire? Fucking land of milk and gravy mate. You want to try living with only one lump of coal for breakfast [etc].

we have fights down here too....

whats that you speak of, milk? gravy we never had them down t'pit. think kes crossed with rita sue and bob too.

jon boy, can you get a bacon roll in Amreica? i was speaking to somoene in the US recently about this and they had no idea what i was talking about, you can get bacon, right?

ha. My "locals" are mostly of meh quality. A couple are good enough to have on occasion. There are great ones closer in the city and the bay though. And a fab one about a block away from where i work. I think i'll have fish and chips for lunch tomorrow. :)

You didn't call it a butty though did you? Ha ha.

Why is it that people (Americans) always hassle Brits (the English) over their lack of cuisine, but never hassle the Aussies? A curious anomaly, methinks.

True. I wish someone would tell me some typical australian dishes.

I haven't been able to turn on the TV for years without some cookery guy going on about how amazing Australian cuisine is. Pacific rim, and all that.

I think with Australians, word tends to get out. Y'know, everyone knows they're good at cricket and rugby. They don't need to shout about that. Everyone knows they're all lightweights. They don't tend to shout about that. If their cuisine's so good, why am I eating cheese-flavoured hula hoops, eh?