Tailend Fish Bar @ St Andrews, Scotland

What do you do when you first step foot in UK? Eat fish and chips of course! And it helps if the first city you go to is a seaside town with a chip shop =D

The Tailend Fish Bar at St Andrews used to be quite famous in Edinburgh and without ado after arriving at the guest house, I set off to the town centre in search of British-style fish. Now before we proceed to the taste test, how would you pronounce Tailend? Well it was very obvious to me that it's "Tail-end" - I mean those two words literally jump out at you. Turns out, it is a homonym of Thailand >.< And I even stopped to ask a few locals where "Tail-end" is located when I couldn't find the shop  >.< (JS: tsktsk)                       

Menu Part 1

Menu Part 2

Single Breaded Cod (GBP 5.80)

I had the single breaded cod instead of the usual battered haddock that I always order. Perhaps because of this and the fact that I had raised my expectations for the famous fish and chippery, it did not taste as nice as I had expected. It was deep-fried to a nice golden brown but it was rather dry. Maybe it was also because I had just got off the plane and didn't have much appetite but I couldn't finish it. To its credit, the fish is much larger than I expected (the usual haddock I have is half its width) and the styrofoam box is much larger than the usual chicken rice type.

Also when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do. So when in UK, fish should be eaten with a liberal splashing of malt vinegar. Here, the vinegar, salt and ketchup bottles are not available for self-service - instead you tell the staff what you want and they'll do it for you. Anyway, there wasn't enough vinegar on my fish but I should have told him to add more.

Oh well, now that I'm back, I should probably go try the Magnificent Fish & Chips Bar that everyone is raving about.


PawPoints: 3 Paws

Tailend Fish Bar
130 Market Street
St Andrews
Scotland
Tel: +44 01334 474 070
Daily: 12am - 10pm, 11.30pm - 12am

Peter's Fish Market @ Gold Coast

There are a few fish and chip shops in Gold Coast serving produce directly sourced from nearby trawlers. Peter's Fish Market which is located on Seaworld Drive is the one most accessible to us as we stayed at Surfers Paradise. It is also only a short walk from Seaworld so I would really recommend anyone stopping by the theme park to pop over for a quick bite. It is really worth the walk =) 

Not sure if the owner looks like this =P

Fresh seafood for sale

More seafood...

Depleting trays are immediately replenished by the staff

Succulent boiled prawns

Large array of fresh fish

Fish of the day + Small calamari + Small chips (AUD 10)

• Extremely fresh haddock with firm white flesh lightly flavoured with salt. Although it has been deep fried, the flesh remains moist and soft.
• Very crispy golden crumbly batter deep fried just right. No bitter dark bits.
• Extremely fresh calamari - tears off easily when bitten and not chewy at all.
• Normal chunky fries but better than the average chip shop fries.

Fish of the day + 4 Prawn Cutlets + Small chips (AUD 13) - Tartare Sauce (AUD 2)

• Extremely fresh prawns - if you scrape off the batter coating, the flesh is translucent and extremely bouncy even though it has just been deep fried. The tail is fried to a very crunchy texture - good for people (like me) who like chewing on crunchy bones =D
• Tartare sauce has a thick consistency unlike the watery ones in Malaysia. It seemed odd to eat fish and chips without tartare sauce or a splash of malt vinegar so we paid AUD 2 for it even though it sounds a bit unreasonable (aren't sauces supposed to be complimentary???). We had leftover sauce even with the small tub in the above pic (maybe JS didn't take much...bland tastebuds =P).

Notice I used the phrase "extremely fresh" multiple times? =D That's just how the food at Peter's Fish Market tastes like. I especially enjoyed the prawns and calamari. Remember to visit one of these trawler-shops when you're at Gold Coast! =)

PawPoints: 5 Paws

http://www.petersfish.com.au/home.html

Peter's Fish Market
120 Seaworld Drive
Main Beach
Gold Coast
Tel: 07 5591 7747
Daily: 9am - 7.30pm