I just read a newspaper article entitled, "60 brilliant Welsh fish and chip shops you should be ordering your tea from tonight":
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/60-brilliant-welsh-fish-chip-7613446
It was nice to see 'The Blue Dolphin' from my home town got a mention. The prize for the best name though has to go to 'A Fish Called Rhondda'! That name made me laugh out loud.
There's something so comforting about a fish and chip shop. It's familiar and warm inside. Wherever you go in Wales or Britain even, most chips shops are the same. Big silver fryers with glass cases displaying pies, pasties, sausage and rissoles. Cod, haddock or hake, is normally cooked fresh on demand and smells wonderful.
You're invited to sprinkle on your own salt and vinegar or the assistant does it for you.
Something though that apparently is peculiar to Wales and not so common in other places, though I wouldn't mind betting they do the same in the North of England, is to order a carton of curry with your fish and chips. I don't know who started that trend off, but we do it a lot here and yet, at home if I cook fish and chips, I'd never dream of adding curry sauce!
For me, it has to be the fruity curry sauce, the one with the sultanas and apples. That's the one I love with my cod and chips. Then breaking into the fish with my knife and fork beneath the crispy, golden batter, to see white flaky fish. Heavenly. The chips are usually cooked in a special oil that makes them crispy and tasty, I think various chip shops have their own favourite oils, giving their chips a slightly different taste.
Some Chinese takeaways in Wales also do great fish and chips as well as their usual special fried rice, Egg fu yung, and Chicken and black bean sauce, etc. There's one in Merthyr Tydfil called, 'Jen Chang', at what is commonly referred to as, 'The Bottom of Town'. This is opposite Caedraw flats. They do a respectable fish and chips and also a great Chinese meal. So it's a win-win situation if you go there.
And there's nothing quite like eating fish and chips at the seaside either, in the open air, as long as you can dodge the wheeling, diving seagulls that is, who have their beady eyes on your culinary delight as you try to eat al fresco!
Where is your favourite chip shop? And does it have an unusual name?
