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2023-02-28
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Went to The Chippy for my birthday with Mrs. Charlie, and was excited as this restaurant got good reviews, and fish & chips is one of my top ten all-time favourite dishes. So my expectations were on the high side.Short version: The staff were very nice, the service was fast enough, and the atmosphere is probably much better when it’s crowded and busy. Multi-restaurants-in-one concept was a bit confusing at first. But the fish and chips and pie we ordered were nothing very special, and the fish w
Short version:
The staff were very nice, the service was fast enough, and the atmosphere is probably much better when it’s crowded and busy. Multi-restaurants-in-one concept was a bit confusing at first. But the fish and chips and pie we ordered were nothing very special, and the fish was greasy with a rancid oily aftertaste. $10 for a small packet of tartar sauce is just sad silliness.
Details:
Upon arrival, it was a bit confusing because this restaurant is actually a few restaurants in one unit, almost like a canteen or food court. When you sit down, the waitress gives you a set of menus, so there is one drinks shop (bubble tea, milkshakes, Vietnamese tropical drinks, etc.) menu, a Thai food shop menu, and a couple of others, including the fish and chips shop menu. you order the food from any restaurant from the waiter or waitress. So ordering was straightforward once we understood the concept, as we knew exactly what we wanted, however it did take us a few minutes to understand the fusion concept. As Mr. Gordon Ramsey might say, “Fusion confusion.”
Our order was the full sized fish and chips, a pie, and a milkshake. Food took a longish minute, but when it arrived there was an immediate realisation that things might not be so cheery at The Chippy. There was a shiny layer of oil/grease on the fish. Then upon cutting into it, the coating did not exactly stick to the fish very well, and the texture of the fish was a bit on the firm, almost crumbly side, not exactly flaky and light. I would almost guess that it was frozen fish. Don’t get me wrong, Mrs. Charlie often prepares frozen fish for dinner, so I don’t mind at all, but I was kind of hoping for a big, fresh, flaky, meaty piece of fish in a nice crunchy batter coating. This was not that at all, unfortunately. The worst part was that the oil must have been quite old, because we both couldn’t get the oily taste out of our mouths for the next couple of hours.
Mrs. Charlie’s pie was OK, I would say it was simply lacklustre. I know these are what might be called humble foods but I think it could have been better. My mom used to buy store-bought pot pies when I was young that, although a little bit of a different thing, were quite a bit better.
The strawberry milkshake was also unimpressive.
I need to say something positive, and that is that the french fries were good, but that old oil aftertaste was still a taste bud killer.
Let’s talk about the atmosphere. We went on a weekday afternoon after lunch hour, so seeing the manager walking around, doing business, eating her lunch at the table next to ours, and various other non-busy time activities was not really a bad thing, but this restaurant definitely has an after-drinking at the bar feeling to it. Because then you might not notice the grease on the fish and the taste of rancid vegetable oil that coats your mouth because that’s what alcohol does, it helps you forget.
I hope that we just went on a bad day, and that this place fixes some of its shortfalls, but for now I probably won’t go back. There’s way too many other fish in the sea, so to speak.
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