The Market Place, Todmorden

Copyright – The Local Data Company

 

The Market Place in Tod is an excellent traditional fish and chip shop which does exactly what it says on the sign –no chance then that anyone will take them to court for misrepresentation in the eyes of the Trade Descriptions Act. Except they sell more than just fish and chips – other dinners do exist.

The entrance in the photograph is from Halifax Road in Todmorden and have an entrance at the back that is only a few yards away from one of the great markets in these parts.

The shop is about 40% seating, 40 % take-away counter and cooking area and the remaining 20% is storage and prep. The seating area is made up of a set of booths with Formica table tops that took me back to the 1970s. On each table sat huge amounts of sugar sachets that no-one would ever put a dent in along with the usual selection of salt, vinegar and tomato ketchup.

Although our welcome from the person serving was warm and helpful it was interesting to see the dynamics of what looked like a family working behind the servery. Tensions looked close to bubbling over at any point. As we took our seats the shouty chatter of three children with their parents became very apparent but they were soon to be fed and silence would resume as they tucked into their meals. For a while at least.

I went for the fish, chips and peas which was a very reasonable £5.10. I loved the fact that as standard we were given a knife, fork and spoon as it is perfectly normal to stir vast amounts of sugar into a big mug of tea, which is exactly what a very tired construction worker, who took a seat opposite us, did.  

The fish was wet. And I do mean very wet such that pressing down fish brought forth water. Something may have gone wrong with fish storage or prep of the fish to cause this, but needless to say it didn’t help the texture or the flavour, which was mushy and bland. The batter was light and crispy but had more than a hint of old oil to it.

The chips were great. As so often, in my opinion, they could have done with a minute longer but were crispy and tasted like good chippy chips should.

The peas were big and very, very hot. Once they cooled they had a perfectly pleasant gentle pea flavour.

No tartare but it did come with a little wedge of lemon. The meal was washed down with a glass of corporation pop.

It was great to get to a new, local, basic sit-down fish and chip shop which was the motivation for starting the blog. Unfortunately, the mushy fish was unforgivable. That said, others meals looked slightly better so maybe it was just old-fashioned bad luck.