Epicures Hyndland, Glasgow

A Christmas trip to Glasgow  to see  friends  provided the chance for a lovely fish and chips meal. We found ourselves, by design, in the well-heeled Hyndland area of the city and were very lucky to get a large table in the very very popular Epicures, who have a beautifully minimalistic website.

It was defined as Posh Fish and Chips on the menu, which meant they could charge £10.95 and that the slivers of fillet had to be done in a tempura batter. The fish was a beautifully fresh and expertly cooked Pollock. My only complaint was the portion size, which consisted of two small pieces which were not the major element of the meal, where I like to see the fish dominating the presentation especially as Pollock is a relatively cheap sustainable fish.

I often find that tempura batter can either be too oily or too dry if not cooked well but this was excellent but I would have liked to have seen what the chef would have done with a traditional batter. Maybe next time.

The fried potato wedges were well cooked, probably well cooked twice, but they were still potato wedges with an un-peeled side. However, they were very crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside which made me think they were chips after all.

There were no mushy peas.

As it’s posh it has to come with a celeriac remoulade and a rocket salad. No I haven’t gone mad and I did just write celeriac remoulade and a rocket salad.  While both would be lovely with something like a smoked fish I didn’t think they lifted the dish at all. The celeriac with its cheeky acidity was obviously a replacement for the tartare but whilst tartare allows you to put a dollop on the end of the fish the remoulade just tended to fall off. The remoulade (which I’ll never tire of writing) came with a mustard dressing but it still didn’t have the lovely kick of a good tartare. Rocket salad should never appear with a portion of fish and chips, even if it’s green like mushy peas.

One corner of the board was dominated by a laughably large lemon which had been custom sliced to sit on upright and would only have made sense with a huge portion of fish and therefore for this meal didn’t merit its presence.  Lemons should be a quietly spoken early compatriot to any good fish and chips but shouldn’t be caught sight of from the corner of your eye on a regular basis. There was a trustworthy supporting cast of Sarsons vinegar and Heinz tomato ketchup.

Yes, I said board.

One of the joys of fish and chips is seeing a range of brown shades, and the green of the mushy peas, set against a bright white shiny ceramic background. This meal came on a cheese board and my favourite thing to come on a cheese board is a selection of cheese. Cheese boards apart it was a lovely meal, with good company in lovely surroundings and if I go again I will phone ahead and ask for a tartare sauce rather than the celeriac remoulade and a rocket salad.

Cottage Loaf, Llandudno

Needed a quick bite to eat on Christmas travels and popped in the Cottage Loaf in Llandudno to have a small portion of their fish and chips. The motivation for going was a variety of positive reviews it had received as both a charming pub and a good place to eat.

When it arrived the small portion was a good size and therefore good value at £7.95.

The fish was incredibly fresh and flavoursome and was definitely the star of the meal while the batter had a pleasant simple taste which allowed the fish to shine.  The chips were big, dare I say too big and erring on the side of the wedge, the potato inside was fluffy if a little dry.

The meal came with a lump of mushy peas which was incredibly dry and had a large homogenised clump of inedible peas in its middle. We were eating quite late and clearly the peas had come from the bottom of the saucepan with no thought given to rehydrating them.

The tartare seemed home made with discernible chunks of gherkins in it and had a good balance to the flavours and a pleasant acid kick to it. There was no lemon provided but Heinz tomato ketchup and Sarsons were on the table.

It was a pleasant enough quick bite to eat in a convivial atmosphere, music very quiet in the background and local beers at the bar. Unfortunately the place absolutely stank of frying fat with the door to the kitchen open and the extract clearly not able to cope with trying to pull air out of an entire pub. The smell hanging in the air probably had a part to play in turning the beer into a very flat drink very quickly and I probably wouldn’t go back because of this but they should be applauded for the quality of the fish they served.

The Lescar

The Lescar is a good pub.

The Lescar with some very good Sheffield based friends is even better. It’s in the student enclave of the Hunter’s Bar area of Sheffield and is definitely the most bohemian pub on Sharrow Vale Road, but serves a good selection of real ales and is a pub shaped pub.

The Lescar takes pride in promoting its food and I was hoping for great things from the beer battered haddock and skin-on chips with crushed peas & tartare at £8.50. I was disappointed.

The fish was watery and bland with the batter soggy and undercooked and it ended up having quite a gloopy texture in the mouth. Green herbs had been added to the batter mix and it looks as odd written down as it did seeing it on a plate. You do not put any herbs in a batter for deep fried fish and it shouldn't cross anyone's mind to do it in the first place.

The chips were good and although I knew they were coming with skins on there’s still that sense of a missed opportunity that could have been had, had the chips been deep fried potato slices peeled on every side rather than leaving one to have more texture than the others. If they’ve not fully peeled then it’s a wedge in my book and not a chip.

The crushed peas were OK but not seasoned enough and almost too green. The tartare was also OK but a little too acidic and the lemon was far too small for what was a decent sized fish. They had posh vinegar, which was fine, but I’ve never heard anyone say that “this Sarsons is nowhere near as good as ...”, so I say stick to Sarsons. There was no bread and butter and I was sufficiently disappointed to not even bother asking for the tomato ketchup.

A great afternoon but the meal’s only redeeming feature were the chips, and they weren’t really chips at all.

Crown Street restaurant

A very short late October walk to the hometown staple for this review. A sit-down at Crown St costs £6.95 and comes with bread and butter plus tea - which is a shame because I don't like tea!

The fish tasted incredibly fresh with lovely big flakes but it might have been a tad overcooked. The batter was crispy and flavoursome and held its shape really well. Sadly the chips needed cooking for longer, which is a perennial problem at Crown St, but they tasted fresh even though they were anaemic. Didn't have any mushy peas this time so no comment to make on this but in terms of the extras the lemon was surprisingly big, the tartare was a packet of nonsense and the bread was a bog-standard sliced bread.

However this is the go to fish and chip restaurant in town and we will return many many times in the future.

Haworth Steam Brewery

An early October trip over the hill to Haworth and some fish and chips in the  Haworth Steam Brewery.

Playing the safety first game I elected for the small Yorkshire Fish & Chips, deep fried in their own “ True Tyke” Yorkshire beer batter, as I have far too much experience of not being able to finish the huge portions that are occasionally provided for a Yorkshire based F+C fan. It was a perfectly good portion and at £5.95 pretty good value.

The fish had a very good texture and taste, the batter was light and crispy but a little undercooked and lacking flavour. The chips seemed to have come from a factory and therefore didn't have much personality but were very well cooked. The peas tasted homemade with great texture, a real depth of colour and flavour - fine robust mushy peas! Sadly the tartare sauce was again of the off-the-shelf variety and this particular version had no texture and was far too vinegary. The lemon was a good size and came with a large and frustrating population of pips whilst the salt dispenser also brought its own ergonomic challenges and the vinegar was more off-the-shelf nonsense.

Overall a perfectly pleasant experience. The door was permanently open and as I'm not as hard as Yorkshire folk it made for a pretty cold and drafty eating experience which wasn't helped by having to listen to the joyous sound of a Radio 2 1960s music show, but the stunningly good beers from the pubs microbrewery were outstanding and will will be returning in the future - and I'll be having the F+C yet again!

I'd noticed that there was some contemporary art on at the Brontë Parsonage Museum which was recommended in the Guardian and as I got in free we went along to see 'Ways to the stone house' by Simon Warner. Most of the work used iPhones, sat on the displays in the rooms, to bring beautiful films of evocative Pennine landscapes into the spaces and there were some fabulous photos by Alexander Keighley, Bill Brandt and Fay Godwin on display in the exhibition space.