Eamonn's Dublin Chipper

The best fish and chips I've had in the U.S. are at Eamonn's Dublin Chipper in Old Town Alexandria. I've eaten there three times in the last month. The regular sized cod isn't enormous (two examples are pictured above), but with a large order of chips it's plenty. The chips are not the familiar stubby yellow British variety, but brownish longish versions I was unfamiliar with. Their mushy peas are as good as anything I've had in England, and Eammon's supplies a nice variety of sauces, including a warm curry sauce that tastes like something that would come from a kebab van (the mushy peas and curry sauce, in plastic cups, are pictured above). The one guy working behind the counter the week before Christmas sang along to the post-punk Christmas songs that were playing on the soundtrack.

Past writing on fish and chips.

Fish & Chips in Santa Monica

Ye Olde King's Head pub and restaurant in Santa Monica. B Chan suggested that we have lunch at this place.

The fish and chips were decent. The chips/fries were crispy and substantial, and I liked the chunky tartar sauce. But the fish suffered from over-battering. And the batter was crunchy, rather than crispy. There was about 1/2 inch of batter you had to crunch through before you got to the cod, which was sweet and nice (and "fresh from Iceland"). Compare the look of the batter on the fish to this, for example. The batter on English fish and chips is almost translucent.

We also tried their mushy peas (too watery, not pulverized enough), and their rhubarb crumble. I asked for the Bird's custard to be placed on the side, because it usually smothers the taste of the crumble under a pale yellow mass of super-sweet pudding-like stuff (that's "pudding" in the American sense). But this rhubarb crumble might have benefitted from the Bird's camoflauge, because it wasn't very impressive looking.

Fish Bone

Fish Bone is listed as one of the best Fish & Chip shops in London by Time Out, alongside the North Sea Fish Restaurant and some others. It was okay.

I arrived around 3pm, and the only other person in the place was a big guy who shouted his reasons for not smoking at the Polish waitress standing behind the counter.

I ordered the cod and chips, and another pickled onion. This one was far too vinegary. The fish was decent, but the chips were a little soft. Lunch at Fish Bone cost about half of what it cost at the North Sea Fish Restaurant, and it was about half as good. I would recommend both Tanya's Fish Bar in Barnes and Posh Fish in Oxford over Fish Bone.

North Sea Fish Restaurant

North Sea Fish Restaurant, near the British Library.

I've tried to go to the North Sea Fish Restaurant on two previous trips to Britain, but both times I arrived between 2:30pm and dinner time, when they're closed. This time, Ben and I resolved to make it on time. Ben said that when he was a kid, his dad took him and his brothers there, and it was good.

But of course we waited until one in the afternoon to even leave the flat, which put us in danger of missing the fish restaurant window once more. But Ben's expert piloting of the Mark II Golf through Westway traffic, ability to avoid hydroplaning in high speeds on the motorway in the rain, and reliable knowledge of west London's streets put us outside the NSFR with 15 minutes to spare.

Even though Ant later pointed out that the NSFR is "just a chippie", it's a marvelous one. It has a shabby but comfortable pub-like interior (though it was uncomfortable in the sense that the booth we sat in was designed for a smaller sized diner than me--I banged my knee on the table both on climbing into the booth and in climbing out).

I ordered haddock, chips, mushy peas and a pickled onion (they gave me two). Before this trip, Will suggested that I try a pickled onion as my next step into the world of British food. The pickled onion is like a very large cocktail onion that you bite into like an apple. This puts the vinegar-soaked onion right next to your nose as you bite into it, so the phenomenology of eating one of these things is what I imagine it's like for Tintin when he gets chloroformed.

The rest of the food was great. As we sat and ate our lunch, I watched with sympathy as three different groups of people were turned away because the NSFR was "closed" (though the door was open, and there were people inside eating).

I'll have to come back for dessert.