takeaway | YOUNG & FOODISH https://youngandfoodish.com Fri, 24 Jun 2022 07:37:06 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://youngandfoodish.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/android-chrome-192x192-1-100x100.png takeaway | YOUNG & FOODISH https://youngandfoodish.com 32 32 I’d rather wait for my fish & chips than have my fish & chips wait for me https://youngandfoodish.com/fish-and-chips-are-worth-waiting-for/ https://youngandfoodish.com/fish-and-chips-are-worth-waiting-for/#respond Thu, 19 Mar 2015 09:42:35 +0000 http://youngandfoodish.com/?p=16701

Are you a conscientious cook who will only buy fish from someone who can tell you where, when and how it was caught? If so the eight words you most want to see or hear at your chippy may be the same as those you expect from your fishmonger:

Our fish locally sourced from British Coastal Fisheries.

Important as it is to seek out fish locally caught from sustainable sources whenever possible these are not my eight magic words. The most beautiful words to hear at any fish & chip shop are those spoken to all by the server at Kerbisher EC1, the new takeaway branch of the London chippy Kerbisher & Malt:

 

That will be about six to seven minutes.

Kerbisher EC1Her message was intended as a warning to hurried lunchers passing in the vicinity of Exmouth Market and the Mount Pleasant Mail Centre. I embraced it as a guarantee that all fish was fried to order. With fish and chips fresh from the fryer is as essential as fresh from the sea.

The cocoon encasing my Kerbisher cod had the sure but ilelicate crunch of a carefully battered fillet that had been lifted from the hot oil only seconds before. Its plump sections of opaline white cod where almost lobsteresque.

Flaky Cod

Some chippies are so busy they have no problem serving freshly fried fish on demand. With a sustainable source of local customers no fillet sits for very long in the windowed range. It drains and it goes.

But quieter shops face a dilemma: Prepare the fish in advance and let it wither under the heat lamps until someone claims it or prepare it to order and let impatient customers wither with hunger.

From my standpoint there is no brainer. For fish and chips I have golden rule:

I’d rather wait for my fish and chips than have my fish and chips wait for me.

The Top 10 Fish & Chips in London

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]]> Knightsbridge woman walks out on pork belly sandwich https://youngandfoodish.com/knightsbridge-woman-walks-out-on-pork-belly-sandwich/ Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:13:45 +0000 http://youngandfoodish.com/?p=3386 pork belly baguettePicture a one-armed South Bank street performer juggling pumpkins while being sprayed from the Thames by a naked Duke of Edinburgh skidding by on a jet ski and you can begin to appreciate my astonishment upon seeing an elegant Knightsbridge woman walk out of  O’Shea’s of Knightsbridge butcher shop without one of its incomparable pork belly sandwiches in her possession. “Is that the queue?” she whined towards the single line of 5 or 6 punters ogling the platter of fat-glistening pork belly. She was outta there within seconds, sans un sandwich au poitrine du porc.

oshea pork bellyHow, I wondered later, could anyone get so close to that sandwich yet walk away empty-handed? I tried my very best to put myself in her Christian Louboutins and soon felt a great wave of sympathy wash over me: It wasn’t the 3-minute queue that put her off. Rather, it was the startling indifference of the scoundrels on it. My own misbehaviour, I would, if given the chance, assure her, was due less to bad manners than cowardice: I hated to think of the mean looks the other blokes would have shot at me had I, the first on the queue, let her pass ahead of me and therefore them, too. This was not the moment to make nice like Mr Knightley.

world famous pork belly sandWhen the uninitiated are asked by an O’Shea’s butcher which of the available sandwich accessories – English mustard, apple sauce, rocket (arugula), etc.– they want on their pork belly they can be forgiven for thinking they actually have a choice. In reality the only thinkable option is, (D), all of the above. You would have to bring together David Crosby, Steven Stills, Art Garfunkel, Brian Wilson and Stuart Murdoch in their respective primes to record lush harmonies comparable to those in that sandwich. The condiments melt into the succulent pieces of meat within the warm embrace of the oven-fresh baguette.  And lest the ensemble become too mushy there is the percussive crunch of delectable cracking cut into long, thick strips to break the melody line –  and possibly your incisors, too.

sandwich messageSadly the pork belly baguette is not a daily lunch affair. Darragh O’Shea rotates his sandwich meats to, as the sign says, “mix things up and keep you happy :)” Keep you happy? Apparently they are unaware of the anguish felt when walking out of this Knightsbridge butcher shop without a pork belly baguette.

11 Monpelier Street, Knightsbridge, SW7  (see map) – 020 75817771

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