The Closed Shop, Sheffield

https://www.flickr.com/photos/23112312@N08/2212880140/

I was out with 3 old friends for a few cheeky drinks around the outskirts of Sheffield and needed a good start to the day. Our first pub of the day was The Closed Shop on Commonside on the western edge of the city and it did food so it made a lot of sense to have the fish and chips at £7.95.

The pub has been recently taken over and was very clean but unfortunately on our visit the beer selection wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as it had been on their Facebook profile recently, but this was just a little bad luck on our behalf.

The fish was big and came with an equally large amount of sturdy skin on it which has to be scraped away and discard before I could start eating. The fish was pretty fresh if a little damp with some water coming out of the flesh but was cooked consistently throughout. The batter had a good deep colour and had a great flavour to match the fantastic crispyness.

The chips were yet again not chips but wedges. However, they did have a great flavour although as usual with my taste in the fried potato I would have left them in the fryer for another 60 seconds.

There are two images of the meal. This one clearly shows the frozen peas that arrived on the southern side of the plate and were simply dull. It also shows the overindulgence in the world of green leaves which was simply over the top and wasn’t eaten. Unfortunately, the salad replaced the lemon wedge which is a terrible shame.

The tartare was utter nonsense. Having has the stupid deconstructed tartare at the Clive outside Ludlow this was almost as bad. It was basically some sliced gherkins placed on top of a small, shallow mayonnaise container. I did have some of the mayonnaise with my chips but it was another very poor attempt at what should be a straightforward addition to a fish and chips meal.

The salt and vinegar was in packet form and the meal was washed down with an uncomplicated standard bitter.

The second image is a long shot of the meal with a bottle of Henderson’s Relish included. The object of the photo is really just to show you a bottle of Henderson’s relish.

North Star, Higher Crompton, Shaw, Oldham

Once a year, somewhere between Oldham and Hebden Bridge, I meet up with some very dear friends and their extended and extending family. It is always a joy and one of the highlights of my year. I also got to use the new metro line to Shaw from Rochdale which was also exciting!

This year's venue was high on the hills above Shaw in the Crompton area. I hadn’t been to this pub in my many years in Oldham but the North Star looked a reasonable bet for a decent fish and chips.

I went for the Beer Battered Haddock with lemon & black pepper served with proper chips mushy or garden peas. Homemade tartare sauce. Bread & Butter 75p extra at £8.45. It was one of those pubs that maybe tried a little too hard with descriptions on the menu. I went for the mushy peas and didn’t have the bread and butter.

When it came it was a handsome feast.

The fish was OK without being exciting and lacked any real depth of flavour, but was well cooked and certainly much better than some I’ve tasted. The batter was a lovely crisp crunch of flavour that was a pleasure from start to finish.

The chips were just OK. They were OK in their taste but sadly hadn’t been crisped up like the batter and needed quite a bit of salt and vinegar to kick start them, but once they were improved I really enjoyed them.

The mushy peas were full in size and in flavour. Not in any posh way but just good, honest mushy peas with no airs or graces and the pea flavour did the talking. Lovely.

I am always suspicious when I read the words ’homemade tartare sauce’ and this time was no exception. The consistency and flavour of the tartare looked and tasted like it had come out of a catering jar. However, there was nothing too wrong about the taste and they seemed like honest folk running the place and I’ll therefore give them the benefit of the doubt and just say that it was a good tartare that just happened to look like it came from the wholesalers.

Big slice of lemon, but I’m still not sure where the black pepper was as it didn’t come across in the batter and wasn’t hiding anywhere, so it’ll have to remain a mystery.

The meal was washed down with ThwaitesWainwright which was on very good form.

The highlight of the meal was the company – wonderful friends and, although it’s only once a year we meet up, it may as well have been the day before. Maybe the smiles are a little broader for our year apart. 

The Borough, Lancaster

Fish and chips for £12 on a very short weekend break to the county town of Lancashire.

TheBorough is a smart, independent gastro-pub in Dalton Square in the centre of Lancaster with a fantastic selection of beers. It is an impressive Georgian Town House, once the Mayor of Lancaster's house, run as a family business since 2006.

We visited on a bank holiday weekend and the atmosphere was relaxed, friendly and not too noisy as the internal spaces were well broken up.

As you’ll see from the photo of the meal, they committed what I consider to be a serious fish and chip sin. The fish arrived wrapped on top of the chips in thick, waxed, fake newspaper, advertising the Borough’s offers – a gimmicky and unnecessary nod to the world of the chippie newspaper.

The peas arrived in a ramekin, which was fine, but the tartare had been demoted to be served in a poorer, mini paper version. Surely tartare deserves the same respect as the peas? The bread and butter was left as it had little appeal.

The fish was a very solid piece of haddock with good flavour, but I was expecting something fresher as we were so close to Heysham docks. However, it was very well cooked and enjoyable from start to finish. The batter was good in places but not in others due to some very uneven frying. The flavour of the batter was OK where it had been correctly cooked.

The chips were too big. They were clearly hand cut which I did appreciated, but their girth was 50% more than a good chip should be. They had more in common with the old block than with the chip and some had stuck together, making an already giant chip into an absolute chip monster.

They also had been inconsistently cooked, they lacked crispiness and the flavour wasn’t terribly exciting.

The peas were a reasonably mix of slightly solid and fully mushed peas with a lovely hint of mint running through them. The tartare was tart but too finely chopped for my taste, although it worked well as a complement to the fish.

A decent lemon wedge and salt and vinegar were provided – the vinegar in a standard, run-of-the-mill, Sarsons dispenser.

 It was washed down with their Borough Brewery pale ale, which was an absolute cracker.

Overall, I didn’t feel like they were using the best ingredients and they certainly could have taken more care of the cooking.

A good pub, with OK food.

The Clive, Bromfield

The Clive is a posh bar and restaurant just outside Ludlow. We were in Ludlow for a gig by the magnificent Lau and The Clive was recommended so we gave it a go. Unfortunately, some poor bus research meant we had to get a taxi at a handsome £11.50.

I went for lightly battered cod fillet, home cut chips, mushy peas and home-made tartare sauce, which, just like the taxi, cost £11.50. Many things in and around Ludlow seem unreassuringly expensive.

The cod didn’t have much taste and was a surprisingly thin piece of fish. The batter was light, had a very good flavour and wasn’t in the slightest oily. It formed a great crispy accompaniment to the fish.

The chips were outstanding. They weren’t trying to be anything but proper chips. Not too big, not too small with a beautifully crisp golden exterior and a big potato flavour on the inside.

The mushy peas were stunning and had an incredibly clean, deep, intense pea flavour.

Now, the tartare. It did say ‘home-made’ tartare but I wasn’t expecting it to actually mean that you had to take it home and make it yourself. On the plate were three gherkins and two caper berries which were sitting on a dollop of mayonnaise. So, along with the traditional lemon, for squeezing on the fish, I was pretty much all the way there with the ingredients. A sharp knife and a small mixing bowl were the only things they forgot to bring out. It was a classic case of unadulterated, deconstructed nonsense.

The aforementioned lemon was a good size and had perfected squeezability and naturally, as it was a posh place, I had to ask for the vinegar.

Overall, a perfectly OK fish and chips, with the chips and peas being the standout elements, with Hobson’s Best Bitter being a good beer to go with the food.

Getting back to Ludlow proved a bit of a pain: there were no taxis for two hours so a three-mile hike by the side of a busy road was the only solution.

The madness of the deconstructed tartare still makes me wonder how a good restaurant can get it so wrong.