So Many Restaurants, So Few Places for Fish & Chips

I know, I know. 

Any Floridian reading this blog will shrug his/her shoulders and wonder what on earth I am grumbling about.  (Yes, I know...my sentence structure is incorrect, but who's keeping score?)  

There are many incredible local restaurants where shrimp may be had by the bucket load, clams by the score, and oysters, blue crabs, stone crabs and lobsters all vie for top billing.  There are exotic sounding fish dishes including mahi mahi, snapper and thick tuna steaks, to name but a few. But, a good old fish supper of beer-battered cod or haddock with english style chips (fries to the locals) is hard to find.

Some places do try, but they mess it up by trying to be too fancy.  Special tartare sauce, with lemon wedges and OMG.... salad on the side.  What are they thinking?

A good old London east end fish 'n chips, with a pickled onion and a wally... liberally doused with salt and lashings of malt vinegar, wrapped up in layers of white paper, now that brings on homesick pangs like you wouldn't believe.   

All those who are confused about a 'wally', (it's a pickled, fat, juicy cucumber) have never tramped the streets of the east end of London with a parcel of steaming fish and chips, leaking vinegar AND an aroma that would challenge anyone's taste buds to ignore.

Maybe it's the focus on the Olympic games being held in that part of London,  home of the Cockneys (stipulation being that one had to have been born within the sound of Bow Bells) that brings to mind that uniquely British dish of calories and carbohydrates, guaranteed to elevate one's cholesterol, but is so worth it.

Sorry Florida - your fish dishes are great, but they're just not a substitute.  

Tea time anyone?