Tag Archives: fish and chips

Fish & Chips – with a Side of Sprouts

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I’m trying to get a few posts done while I have access to the internet. As my last post indicates, I have no reason to be optimistic that I will be connected to the internet any time soon. It is amazing how much we now use the internet for.

I need it to do my weekly shopping and I need it to renew my house insurance. I also need it to shop for odds and ends. And because I’m not good at technology and passwords, I need it for WP. I could, I suppose, blog using a tiny touch screen, but if I do, it keeps warning me about data usage.

It strikes me that we are being forced to use the internet more and more – all my insurance documents will be sent by email – and if we don’t have it huge chunks of our life will disappear. I was reading about how people merge into each other as time goes by, and the problems this causes when one dies. This specifically relates to married couples, where the partners take on different responsibilities. It is certainly true for us. Julia does all the social, empathetic family stuff. I do the . . .

Deep fried Brussels

Actually, I’m not sure what I do. The last time I was actually necessary was when maps needed reading. Since satnav that has become a redundant skill.

Yesterday, travelling up from Peterborough, we stopped at the Cod’s Scallops again. This is becoming a habit. Unfortunately it’s a habit we will have to break in a couple of months when the move is complete. We had our customary pensioners’ special (though they call it something more upbeat on the menu) with a side order of deep fried Brussels. They were in a light tempura style batter and they were very good, though a little hot. They are, I suppose, full of water, and that had heated to boiling point in the fryer. I burnt my mouth. The pictures feature the meal.

Settling In

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Gadwall – a duck with natural camouflage. Its main distinctive feature is that it has no distinctive features.

I’m far from out of the (metaphorical) woods yet, but things are looking a lot brighter. We have furniture. We have a little more idea of what is happening and we managed to tempt a builder into action, even if only for half a day.

We tested the local chip shop, which serves large portions of high quality fish, chips and peas and found it to be as good or better than our current local shop.

This afternoon I visited the annual exhibition of the Peterborough Military History Group. The car parking will be suitable for me and several of the people at the exhibition were still recognisable from the distant past (it’s around 35 years since I last attended a meeting). That takes care of my social life – the second Wednesday of the month will henceforth find me in the company of old men in the meeting room at the museum. The fourth Tuesday of the month will be the coin club, though this might be more elusive, as I’m told they are down to about half a dozen members. They still post meeting notices in Coin News, so I hope they still exist.

Wheatear

The cafe at Peterborough Museum has been done up since I last visited and I enjoyed a lemon and poppy seed muffin with a cup of tea and proper china teapot for one. Yes, I’m a simple man, but sitting there in what had once been a fine Georgian house (still with flame mahogany doors) I confess to feeling a sense of history. I’m looking forward to my next visit.

Finally, as we chatted in the kitchen and looked out at the darkening sky, a bat flew past. Then another. Or possibly the same one going back. Hard to tell with bats. That’s more bats in an evening than I normally see in a year in Nottingham.

There were no senior moments tonight.

Today’s theme is birds.I have some good photos of medallions but I’m sure that most people would prefer birds.

Heron

Cods Scallops II – This Time it’s Haddock

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Ys, it’s a paper bag – I’m easily impressed

We had to go to the gardens last night to run an errand which should, and could, have been done by someone else but, as usual, Julia got landed with it.

She offered to buy me fish and chips in return for the lift and I was happy to accept. We decided that another visit to The Cod’s Scallops was in order, but this time decided to try the takeaway in Carrington, which is our local branch.  This is all part of our “try something new” initiative for the summer. We have been getting into a rut.

I parked while Julia went to order the food. They cook to order and they also have a click and collect system, which basically allows people to push in. It took a bit longer than I would have liked, but it was nice and fresh and still hot when we got home.

The fish was nice and fresh, and a nicely shaped portion. I recently had a piece of fish from another shop which started off life as a thin fillet and after it had been battered, fried and generally over-cooked began to resemble a cross between a sword and a shoe sole. It’s all about attention to detail and they seem to be getting it right. A good piece of fish, cooked by well trained staff and the result is good. Poor quality ingredients and uninterested staff, on the other hand, lead to bad results and lost custom.

Inside the bag, it’s a lot of packaging – what position do you thinks they occupy on the list of UK chip shops?

There’s not much else to say.  The fish and chips were good, the peas were also good. However, it was undeniably expensive. For a few pounds more we could have gone to Harvester and eaten free salad with our meal. Or, if we’d used Julia’s discount card, we could probably have eaten cheaper. I don’t want to deny anyone a fair profit on their labours, or to ignore the fact that the cost of raw materials is rising, but there is a level at which yo have to do the sensible thing and eat at home. It’s nice to eat out, or have food delivered, but we have other things to do with our money at the moment and  although it’s giving me something to blog about, we need to economise.

Fish stocks, meanwhile are still declining, so we might not even have fish and chips in future, regardless of price. For those of you who don’t know what nephrops are, here is a link. I didn’t know either. It turns out they are scampi.

Haddock, chips, mushy peas. Does food get better than this?

The Cod’s Scallops

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The Cod’s Scallops is a prize-winning local chain of fish & chip shops (and restaurants). We have been meaning to go to one for years, but with one thing and another, have only just got round to it.

I once read an article on The Cod’s Scallops and the attention to detail they needed to win. It was a matter of professional curiosity, as we were involved in the kitchen at the Ecocentre at that time. The inspectors do things like checking under appliances using a mirror on a stick. It would, I thought, be a good time to start applying some attention to the details of the way I live.

This is a new leaf I intend to turn over. We have hardly been out since lockdown, and only eaten out a handful of times. Now I am retiring I need to extend my horizons and interact with people – sitting at home turning into a vegetable is not an option. We also took a bag of books to the charity shop and when we returned home I started the process of tidying up my administrative affairs. I have  lot of things I need to do and need to get on with them.

As an aside here – those of you who read Derrick Knight’s blog may know that he calls gherkins “wallies”. I always assumed it was some sort of regional term, as I had never heard it before. You can order a “wally” from the menu we used today, though at £1.70 (or £1.20 if you use the takeaway service) I decided not to bother. It would need to be the size of a cucumber to make me want to pay that amount for a pickle.

They also have a selection of other seafood available, and Julia is keen to try some on our next visit. So am I, but first we went for fish and chips just to see how the quality compares.

Now, back to the main subject. It’s clearly a very popular venue, because on our first attempt we could only find a cramped corner table. I’m not good in cramped conditions as I am built along generous lines and am not designed to fit in a small space.

So we had a drive round and returned later. In between we went to find a pizza restaurant we used to go to, but it has shut and it is now a Burger King. That was depressing, but at least it spurred us on to return to our original choice which, by 2pm, was almost empty.

We had the Special. However, the name may be over doing it a bit. It was very nice  but featured a small piece of cod (very tasty, but clearly the price had been kept down by trimming the fish portion size), nice chips, adequate mushy peas tangy homemade tartare sauce and a mug of tea. It was good, but whether it achieved the level of being special is debatable, particularly as it had no bread and butter. I expect a fish special in a fish & chip restaurant to have bread and butter.

It cost £10. My ribs on Saturday night cost nearly twice as much. They featured a rack of ribs, lots of chemical sauce, moderate chips, OK coleslaw and a half boiled corn cob. In terms of health, freshness and quality the Special wins hands down. Size, the ribs win. But you can’t argue with the value. Two of us ate for the price of one person on Saturday, and though I didn’t exactly feel full at the end of it, I did feel it was good value. Anyway, I eat too much and they say it’s good to feel a little hungry at the end of a meal. I suppose it’s about time that, as a pensioner, I should start picking at my food instead of enjoying a big plateful.

This is my first food review in a while, so I’m feeling rusty, but it’s a start and I will gradually get better. One of the things I must do is start taking notes. I think the special is actually called the Daytime Special but I forgot, and when I looked it up online I couldn’t find it listed.

Something else I’ve noticed is that both Harvester and The Cod’s Scallops, though having their menus online, aren’t so keen on putting their prices online. This is a bit irritating when trying to check facts, though I suppose it does save a lot of work every time prices change.

 

There are signs that the attention to detail isn’t what it used to be. They have, for instance, model sailboats on the tables with numbers painted on the sails. When Julia (who did the photos today) wanted to picture one she used one off the table next to us, as ours was covered in food debris and had a splash of ketchup on the sail. It makes you wonder what the rest cleaning regime is like. We had much the same thing when we had the tea room on the farm and the tables were invaded by pot plants. The words “form over function” are currently circling in my thoughts like a dream sequence from a film.

Talking of ketchup, where their tartare sauce is tangy and top notch (unlike some of the homemade tartar sauces I have had in other restaurants), the own brand tomato sauce was a bit bland. It had a nice tomato taste, but lacked the tang of something acidic.

If I’m being picky, there are a few other things that could be attended to. The chairs look like the seats could do with a sand and revarnish, and the toilet wasn’t quite as clean as the rest of the place. There is also just the one toilet for “Buoys” and “Gulls”, the disabled (yes, that’s me) and baby changing. I imagine that you could get a bit of a queue at times when it is busy. As a man who can find himself needing the toilet urgently at times, I’m not sure I’m keen on this. It could be tricky.

All in all, it’s a pleasant place to eat (this was the one on Wilford Lane, by the way – they have several branches round Nottingham). Food was good and value was good. However, we’ve been to a lot of fish and chip restaurants around the country and may of them are equally as good. The main difference between them and The Cod’s Scallops would seem to be the seafood selection and the number of awards that they have accumulated. However, winning awards is a different skill to cooking, and it pays not to get them confused.

A Much Better Day

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Got up. Breakfast. Wrote a bit. Two cups of tea and a bit of exercise. Drove down to surgery.

The nurse, after much prodding and considering her options, hit blood on the second attempt and filled the necessary three tubes. I gave her a urine sample, which she had texted me about yesterday afternoon (my texts to and from the nursing profession, if that mythical future PhD student ever finds them, will appear slightly strange).

Did I ever tell you about the photo of my leg which I sent to the doctor. During the phone consultation surrounding my cellulitis (which I had a month before my first Covid) I was asked to provide a picture of my leg, which I did. It was not pleasant. A few minutes later I got a call.

“Mr Wilson,” she said, ” It’s X here from the surgery. Can you tell me why you sent this picture of your leg?” (She wasn’t really called X, I just forgot her name).

“The doctor asked me to send it.”

“Oh, that’s alright then.”

“Did you think I’d just sent you a picture of my festering leg.”

“You’s be surprised,” she said, with the air of one who has suffered, “if you saw some of the pictures people sent me.”

Got a parking space at work. Had a call from the man who sent Julia’s birthday present. It seems Parcelforce tried to deliver it three times – all at 9 o’clock and all to a shop that has it’s opening hours displayed as starting at 10am. Three times, no success. Why? And why no cards through the door? Normally would be there at 9.00 but because Julia has been off it’s been more like 9.15, or I would have seen them.

To try the exact same time twice is hopeful, to do it three times is jsut plain stupidity.

The rest of the day was quite good and my sister, having been round town with Julia all day, saw me for tea and chocolate biscuits before her return home.

Fish and chips for tea.

The pictures are some Julia took when they had a tour of some of the Mediaeval caves under the centre of town. This set used to be a tannery. The stench must have been dreadful.

All in all, a good day.

 

Chips, Kites and Memories

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Today we drove down to Peterborough and met my sister in Dobbie’s Garden Centre. It’s one of those big modern centres, which is more groceries and giftware than actual gardening stuff, but they do a great fish & chips.

The actual ordering system is a little chaotic and features those buzzing things that are very popular these days. Not as popular with me as actually having a member of staff bring to food to the table, but still popular. The chips are large and well cooked with great tartare sauce. The first was succulent and the mushy peas were good. The bread was a nice seeded variety, though the presentation – two slices thrown on a plate with two butter pats, was not quite as well served as the elegant triangular slices shown on the picture.

All in all it was a very good meal and one that reveals how times have changed. A couple of years ago this was the garden centre we stopped at to have tea and cake on our way back from Suffolk in the week lock-down was announced. There ere only a handful of people there that day and we were unable to see my father as the nursing home had already gone into lockdown. Things did not work out too well.

I really must start taking the camera around with me.

After we finished, we saw a red kite over the car park, a really good sighting at low altitude. Mt sister tells me that as the population increases they are taking more live food as their is not enough carrion around, a problem increased by the spread of buzzards into the area. On the way home via the scenic route, we saw another dozen buzzards, one of which was even closer than the car park bird.

On returning home, I found I had an email accepting more poems and we had beans on toast to make up for the calories ingested at lunch.

In summary,

Red Kites

it was an excellent day and a joy to be out, despite the sad memories.

The Red Kites are from our visit to Wales in 2017. 2017? Time flies.

The Ideas Factory

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In past times when I had an idea I would keep it and wait for the right time to use it. I didn’t have many, and there never seemed to be a good time to use them.

Then I made a discovery, there is no limit on ideas, I noticed this years ago, when I sat down and listed ideas of subjects for poetry. I had a list of over 90 ideas. Some worked, some didn’t. But the important thing was that I never managed to work my way through the list, demonstrating that I was capable of generating more ideas than I could handle.

It’s always tempting to mention a meeting I was once in when someone

Ideas, the more you have, the more you get. made the statement “I always see my main strength as having ideas, rather than carrying them out, so if you need ideas feel free to ask.”

Those of you who have been on organising committees will have met the sort. Long on ideas, short on industry. To be fair, she was being modest – self-publicity was her main talent, having ideas was a secondary. We never, of course, needed to ask her for a single idea, as we always had too many.

Oh, I seem to have written two paragraphs about the meeting. It must still be annoying me.

The post can now go one of two ways. It could become a rant about committees. idleness, etc. Or it could remain on course as a discussion on generating ideas.  It’s supposed to be about ideas, so despite the fun element of vituperation, I will stick to the original intention.

Ideas – the more you have, the more you get. I’m just noticing, 12 months after my original (non-COVID) illness, that I am getting back to normal as writing and ideas are starting to take shape once more. It’s been a long time. I actually had to write a lot of notes this morning, as ideas started as soon as I woke up.

I see from the news that fish and chips are under threat – prices are up due to the war and disposable income is down. It’s like the Butterfly in the Amazon effect isn’t it – a dictator flexes his muscles in the East and the UK’s national dish is threatened.

Haddock Special at the Fishpan, Scarborough

Day 116

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Time, I think, to set some ambitious targets. Also, I think, time to keep quiet about it so that it doesn’t come back to bite me.

One target I can reveal is my plan to submit more. I’ve been getting slack and let a few chances slide by. You can call it resting, or preparation  (which I do) but after a while it becomes the norm, and that isn’t what I want.

What I want to do is get back to the old system,  where I had work waiting for the submission window to open. I always feel it is easier to be accepted if you submit early. My theory is that the later you submit the better you have to be to displace the work already submitted. I suppose it depends how editors work, but it seems logical.

It also seems logical that if you submit earlier you don’t have to worry so much about people submitting work with similar themes. Better, at the moment, to be the first poem submitted on the subject of war rather than the tenth or twentieth. Not that I’m thinking of submitting one anyway, as it’s likely to be a crowded field.

The shop owner went to a popular local fish and chip shop to eat last night. He hasn’t had fish and chips for a while and was surprised by the price. They haven’t been a cheap meal for years now, really, and prices of pub meals have come down considerably.

As I pointed out, at least they are relatively unprocessed and cooked fresh, whereas cheap pub food is likely to be full of additives and come out of a frozen packet. Another case of how things have changed over the years.

A Mixed Day Trip

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Sorry, I’ve had a distinct lack of application over the last week. A lot of it is probably due to lack of sleep, followed by lack of focus. This leads to a lack of writing, and that will never do. I have written some bits but on a couple of occasions I have then fallen asleep at the computer and woken after midnight with 150 words done and nothing actually finished.

We went to the Yorkshire coast, finishing at Scarborough yesterday. Although it was open, and even crowded in places, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm as couples with white knees exposed themselves to the weak Yorkshire sun and looked glum. I expect many of them wanted to be abroad.

Saltburn was pretty as ever, but full, as was Sandsend. We went round Whitby and called at the Botham bakery on the edge of town (the main tearoom only being open to people who book, and we hadn’t been organised enough. We had a pork pie to tide us over (it was getting a bit late by then) and bought pies and cake to eat during the week when we got home. We then drove down through then moors and had fish and chips on the front at Scarborough. They aren’t the best fish and chips, as I may have mentioned before, but it is probably one of the best sites for a chip shop I’ve ever eaten in – nestled under the cliffs and castle, and just yards from the sea.

A Botham Pork Pie – one of the best

Chips. A bit greasy, but generally OK

As I have probably said before, one of the main casualties of the virus is going to be spontaneity, as there’s a lot more booking to be done when visiting. I don’t know about you but when I’m away from work I like to relax. That means having a broad plan like “afternoon tea at Botham’s or “visit X”. It’s not about booking afternoon tea for 3.30 or visiting X by timed ticket ay 10.45.

If it had have been we would have been in trouble, because one of the engine management lights came on as we left home. The garage had a look at it for me and sorted within 20 minutes, but it was all time lost when we should have been travelling to the coast. It would not have been half as relaxing if I had had a timetable to keep to.It’s going to be  along time before I get the hang of relaxing again, as I found myself getting annoyed by the alck of distancing whilst queuing for the chips. Some people just ignored the flow system and the six foot rule, even though there are a lot of signs about. Yorkshire seems a lot more concerned about this than Nottingham for instance. A lot of the people who ignored the signs had kids with them – I can only assume they are happy to bring their kids up as selfish louts.

Home via the Humber Bridge

Fish and Chip Review – The Dolphin, Sutton on Sea

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It’s been so long since I last had fish and chips at the seaside (13 months?) that I’ve forgotten how I used to do the titles and whether they were part of the Scone Chronicles or not. I have forgotten so much in the last year…

We had Fish and Chips from the Dolphin in Sutton on Sea yesterday, They aren’t always as good as they could be and we keep saying that we will try a different chippy, but we’ve been going there for thirty plus years and it seemed wrong to desert them after lockdown. We had to queue outside and use the takeaway side, but they were very good. Possibly better than eating in. W had cod, because there was no haddock and it was very enjoyable. I may go back to cod for a while. The word succulent comes to mind.

Succulent Fisha nd Chips

It is only frozen Icelandic cod, which is the same as we would have in Nottingham, but eating it where you hear the sea and the gulls seems to make it taste better. Talking of which, we didn’t see many gulls around. I wonder if a year of no easy pickings has persuaded them not to hang round in seaside resorts.

Though the fish was excellent to the point of succulence, the chips didn’t quite measure up. They were a bit thin and floppy. That was how people used to describe me when I was in my teens. Sadly, the chips will be unable to grow out of their thin and floppy stage as they didn’t survive being my lunch. Despite my comments, I ate every one and left nothing but a greasy stain…

A better photographer would have photographed his wife next to the chips and titled the photo “Two of my favourite Things” . Unfortunately the photo did not work out. And I totally forgot to take a picture of the succulent flakes of cod as I was too busy stuffing them into my face.