We were on our way back from one one of Cornwall’s most famous golf courses, when Ickle suggested we should stop off somewhere for dinner.
“Padstow is just down the road,” he said, “Rick Stein has got a quite famous fish and chip shop there?”
Ickle’s record that week for suggesting activities was far from impressive, but I quite like fish and chips, though I do not like celebrity chefs. It was a dilemma, to be sure. My argument that any celebrity chef opening a fish and chip shop is clearly going to be doing so not for Michelin stars, but just to make a shit load of cash fell upon deaf hears, and so off towards Padstow we headed.
We were surprised to find that there was a small sit-in area at his chip shop, I suppose to give us the faintest illusion of being in a restaurant. We stood in the queue and waited for a table.
And waited.
At about ten to nine we had finally reached the front of the queue. A waitress came over to us and I began handing over my order. She immediately interrupted me.
“I’m sorry. We close at 9pm, so I don’t think we’ll be able to seat you now.”
“What? We’ve just queued for quarter of an hour!”
“Sorry about that. You can still get a take away?”
Faced with with having nothing to eat, or having fish and chips in the car, we joined the take away queue, which moved only marginally quicker than the sit-down queue.
“I’ll have cod and chips with mushy peas please.”
“We’re out of mushy peas.”
Out-fucking-rageous.
What sort of chip shop runs out of mushy peas? A really fucking shit one, that’s what sort of chip shop runs out of mushy peas. One that is more interested in ensuring massive profit margins and minimising potential waste than serving it’s customers.
I picked up a can of Coke and headed to the till with my tiny box of cod and chips.
“That’ll be £9.20 please.”
“£9.20? Are you sure? I mean, I know I’ve been queueing for quite a while, but inflation in Cornwall is hardly at Zimbabwe’s levels is it?”
“Urm, right. That’s £9.20 please.”
I sat fuming in the car whilst eating my ridiculously expensive tiny dinner and vowed not to listen to any of Ickle’s ideas ever again. Unless he suggested going to the pub.
fish and chips · padstow · rick stein
Vamos666 · August 21, 2008 at 9:19 am
It sounds like you friend Ickle, is completely taking the piss out of you, he’s either going to get you killed or make you bankrupt. Did you diddle his girlfriend?
Lin · August 21, 2008 at 9:20 am
So what was wrong with the normal fish & chip shop in Padstow? Ickle is a twit and you are so easily led! and then moan about it. Padstow is lovely though.
TOWTAL · August 21, 2008 at 11:08 am
If only you’d called someone who’d been there before, you could have gone to the fish and chip shop which is under £5 and gives you twice as much. Fish and chips is primarily about volume! Good cheap weekend then
Keef · August 21, 2008 at 11:30 am
£9.20 for fish and chips !!! You have got to be kidding me, It costs me under £15 at the local chippie to feed a family of four with 2 hungry teenagers, My son especially eats like a starving hyena.
£9.20 for one is outrageous, I take it you had caviar rather than cod then?
What it is with celebrity chefs owning strings of restaurants, food shops and even chippies now? Do they ever actually set foot in these places and do some actual cooking or is it just the belief that their name over the door will bring in the suckers enabling them to charge over the odds prices. It’s not like cooking fish and chips is all that difficult is it.
xl · August 21, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Well, was it good? £9.20 good?
Sewmouse · August 21, 2008 at 2:21 pm
There should be a law. Like if you want to put your name on fish & chips, you should have gone fishing at least once, or dug up a potato.
Or if you want your name on a steakhouse, you have to at least once in your life been within 2 yards of a cow…
Lin · August 21, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I like that, so if you want a pork chop you have to spend 2 hrs shovelling first…
or be able to give a sheep a haircut if you fancy a rug?
If you want to move house do you have to make snails into slugs first?
steve · August 21, 2008 at 7:34 pm
If you want to know what the locals think of Mr. Stein (a bumptious outsider), you should visit the Mr. Bistro fish restaurant in Mevagissey some time.
Vamos666 · August 21, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I think that Noel Fielding is a cunt.
Vamos666 · August 21, 2008 at 11:49 pm
But then I do have a sense of humour.
Ian Deans · August 22, 2008 at 10:11 am
The real question is why anyone would want peas while they’re eating fish and chips. Have you lost your mind?
Gnarlyswine · August 22, 2008 at 1:14 pm
All he is saying – is “give peas a chance”
Misty · August 22, 2008 at 2:01 pm
How can you eat fish & chips without mushy peas? (and a slice of white bread & butter).
Post of the Week » Blog Archive » Shortlist for week ending Friday 22nd August 2008 · August 23, 2008 at 2:25 pm
[...] Am Livid: Padstein Nominated by [...]
Z · August 23, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Consider the probable price of the mushy peas and be grateful.
I trust the vinegar was 20 years old and balsamic.
Equine Pimp · August 23, 2008 at 11:59 pm
You daft bastard, you listened to Ickle.
When do you start doing your 60 minute warm up routine for golf?
Uncle Norman · August 26, 2008 at 5:20 pm
His name is not Rick but Rich Stein.
Oli · August 29, 2008 at 8:47 am
I get the feeling teh fish and chips might haev given angry terminal food poisoning, he has been ominously quiet!
Chalcedon · August 31, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I received this bollox too. I’m going to give the NSPCC a donation directly rather than feed the bastards at BT Yahoo. I do that anyway as this is my ISP. I think their disingenuous crap about how they will help is pretty obfuscatery in my polysyllabic opinion.
BT-Yahoo? WANKERS!