Recently the people on the Scunthorpe Telegraph newspaper and website were asked to name their favourite Chip Shop in the area.

I did this myself, voting for Excel Fisheries on Rowland Road, Scunthorpe. It’s a great chippy and I have been going there for the best part of 20 years. It has improved by quite a margin since the owner took a back seat to pursue other interests, leaving his misses to do the cooking. Good move in my opinion because even though the chips are OK when he cooks, she actually puts a bit of colour in them!

Anyway, the good people of Scunny voted and a chippy of which I have not frequented was a clear winner…

Newland Fryer, Newland Ave, Scunthorpe.

There were a couple of chippies mentioned that I have had the pleasure/displeasure to eat their offerings. The one at Messingham which is good if a little shy with the chips – you need two portions if you’re hungry. Carvers which is shit but immensely popular and Harry’s on Frodingham road, Good, and now the goto chippy in that area since Wilsons (a few years ago the best chippy in town) was shut for Health grounds – Rats and their droppings, enough said.

So, hungry, off I went to Newland Ave and waited in line for my portion of Haddock, Chips and Peas. The off back home for the feast.

Oh how the people of this fine town are wrong. So wrong they are Wrongy McWrong from Wrong town on national lets not be Right day.

On opening the bag the paper was wet with grease. OK you get a bit of this in pretty much any chippy, but the paper was especially wet. Not a good start.

The fish was small. I know catches in the North Sea and Atlantic are declining but the Haddock is a massive fish. If I had gone in and asked for Stickleback I would have been happy with the size. OK so it was small, I have had smaller, but it was tasteless. Flaky white meat held a promise the poor fish that gave it’s life for this moment couldn’t live up to. Sometimes a tasteless fish is saved but the batter it’s clothed in. Not this time, again tasteless. It must be the fat they cook in as you can’t really mess up the recipe for batter. Flour, Salt and water. Maybe the salt police got to them and they missed that out. I don’t know. All I know is the finished product, sat swimming in it’s own pool of grease, tasted less than the paper it was wrapped in.

The peas didn’t taste of bugger all either. As you can see from the picture above, they had plenty of that bright green colour we have come to love and expect from chippy peas, just no flavour.

Now the chips…

What is it that a triumvirate of foodstuffs – Fish, Potato, Pea – can simultaneously look reasonably fine, if a little shiny, be so uninspiring and bland? They were firm and visually cooked to a nice crisp outer. Surprisingly the inner wasn’t mushy like the chips from Carvers. But, and I am beginning to sound like a broken record here, tasteless.

A few hours after the disappointing meal I still had a greasy mouth texture and had to go clean my teeth. Also felt a little queasy, although this could be attributed to the large amount of Fanta drunk to rid me of the foul after affects.

I didn’t finish the meal. Which if you know me you know I can’t abide wasted food.

Verdict

Fish: 4/10 – Chips: 4/10 – Peas 3/10

Recommend? No, go somewhere else.

I love chips me. I do. you can tell because as stated earlier I am rotund, fat, lardy. I’m a fan of the fried potato. So simple; potatoes, fat and of course heat. But why is it so difficult to cook the perfect chips?

Oh, a clarification for all you loverly peoples from the US and A – Chips are what you would call ‘fries’. I know chips to you are what we in the UK call crisps. They are different. I love ‘em both. Crisps is a subject for another time, here we will concentrate on chips.

Anywho, now we have cleared up the semantics of the fried potato let us move onto a bit of a rant. I know variety is the spice of life and I know people have their own tastes and all that but how is it that it’s very hard to find the ideal chip. The ideal chip ladies and gentleman is a chip that is cooked in very hot fat, until it is golden and just on the cusp of going brown on the points and corners. The result is a chip of such immense flavour and texture as to tickle you taste buds into a frenzy of ecstasy. Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.

For instance we have a great chippy not 200yds from where I live – Excel Fisheries – and two ways of cooking. They use real dripping for their cooking liquid which is the fat of choice. So we have the same potatoes and the same frying medium in the same fryers in the same shop. This is where the similarity stops unfortunately. OK so both the following scenarios produce chips which are better than most admittedly but that doesn’t detract from the fact there is a clear gap in the deliciousness of the finished product.

When the gentleman of the shop is on cooking duty the chips. . . well they look and feel as if he has just shown the potatoes to the fat. They are anaemic to be honest. They still taste great for sure, but the visual and textural aspects are sadly lacking. It’s also a suspicion of mine that the fat is not of the high and required temperature to give them a golden glow… even if he left them in long enough that is. However salvation is upon us as most of the time the lady of the shop is on the rota more often than not. She has the fat so hot it smokes, she has the knowledge and fortitude to leave them there potatoes in the fat for a goodly long time, until a golden hue radiates from every stick of spud. Oh heaven.

The way I have described also leaves the chips dry. A lot of chippies in this humble little corner of Lincolnshire produce soggy, wet, greasy chips. My in-laws are in the wet soggy greasy camp. They shun the ideal; crisp, golden dry chip, with a paucity of regard to their taste receptors. Each to there own I suppose, but who’s writing this?

Portion size is another issue that boils my piss. At my local mentioned above we have a medium portion that is enough to fill, but not so much you feel bloated. Some decide that a single scoop is sufficient. They would be wrong. There is a chippy in a village a few miles away that does fish patties. These are a slice of fish sandwiched between two slices of potato and then battered. No chippy that I know of in town does these, they are sublime by the way, so off we go to the village in question only to be confronted with a portion of chips that makes even McDonald’s medium fries look generous. (McDonald’s, and Burger King for that matter, they are not chips they are fries. So they don’t count.)

The opposite is true of the best chippy in town. It’s called Wilson’s and it been here that long that even my Dad went there in the 60′s. The chips are the best made in Scunny, plus the portion size is massive, I’m not joking here, you can feed two grown men on one portion. It’s the same with the kebabs. Jebus they are big!

There is nothing quite like ‘Chips and Peas’ in the fresh air, better still if the air in question is cold, preferably salty like at the seaside.

Now I have travelled the length and breadth of this fine land of ours, as far south as Lands End and as far North as Wick. As far east as Great Yarmouth and west as Aberystwyth. All over the place and in most of the places I have been, I have indulged myself in bag of chips. Therfore due to this vast knowledge of the fried potato I would like to name the ‘Best Chip Shop in the UK’

The Chippy, the Best

The Chippy

90 Old Christchurch Rd

Bournemouth, BH1

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Crisp, hot, golden and with Salt and Vinegar – Perfect chips

The fish was cooked to perfection granted, but the chips are where it’s at and they were sublime and fully deserved of the accolade bestowed upon it by this lover of chips.

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They can’t brew a decent beer in the south but man can the do a chip.