British Food-fish and chips at Churchillls

I was going to save food from Blighty until near the end of this experiment, thinking it would be best to use Christmas as an excuse to have traditional food from round my way, but then I figured, well Churchills (the sausage and pie people) have opened up a thing in the Xindian Carrefour, it’s cheap and I’m feeling oddly nostalgic. So why not?

OK, background. I know for many people, and it is usually people who have never been, think of British food as some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare, and while it is true there is terrible food in the UK, there is bad food everywhere. I’ve had Taiwanese people tell me that all they could find on a trip to London was McDonalds, which if I had said the reverse they would have been horrified. The first time I took Mrs. Bao back to the UK, a friend of hers (who had never been) had warned her that UK food was terrible and she actually packed instant dried noodles just in case she starved. She was having none of it that the food was good and that you could get anything. We saw the same noodles for sale in Chinatown- and other flavors not available in Taiwan. 10 points to me.

  Though I’m not a Londoner, I urge any visitor to the capital to go to Borough Market, and although it is pretty touristy, go there and then come back and tell me that you think all British food is crap. I know you’ll find something there that will tickle your fancy.

I’ll be honest, fish and chips was never really a thing in my life when I still lived over there. I definitely had it, but was actually relatively expensive and a bit of a rarity in the towns and cities, you were more likely to find curry and or fried chicken. I recall going into a chip shop near my cousin’s house in Stretford (yes, with an “e”, it is a part of Manchester) and asking for fish and chips and the guy behind the counter told me they only sold pies, I gave him the stink eye and left. To this day, I still don’t know if he was taking the piss.

Speaking of expense, a thing you’ll find with a lot of British folk is that they are not very well traveled within the UK as domestic travel is expensive. It is/was actually possible to go to Spain more cheaply than it is/was to visit somewhere closer to home ( I have to use “is and was” here due to the coming apocalypse of leaving the EU) . The weather is better too, so why would you stay home? People expect that you’ve been everywhere, eaten everything and all that, but it just ain’t true. We are much more likely to think of ourselves as connoisseurs of Indian food. Everyone’s best mate (including yours even though you might not have met him) Stueycool over in Edinburgh, who used to live here in Taipei, is older than me and last time I’d checked he has never been to London, but has been to many many other places.

Oh where was I? Oh yeah. Fish and chips.

Dining with me today was just Preschooler Bao. Mrs. Bao was tired as this weekend is the weekend where her company does its annual charity thing where they bring a bus load of kids from a Taidong orphanage up to the Big Smoke to have fun, see the sights and so on. A few years back, I tagged along and the kids loved me, so I started going every year. Some of these kids have had really tough lives so far- and I find it a genuine privilege to get to hang out with them.  They are adorable and, over the years there have been several I’ve wanted to bring home to stay with us. Today however, I opted to stay home with the bairn. Tomorrow is ice skating and I hope to put in an appearance.

Being only four years old, and over here, I haven’t really had chance to give Preschooler much UK “kulcha”. She is too young to take the piss effectively, and she’ll never need to understand the nuances of the class system- so I have to find some other ways for her to learn her other 50%.

And after 720 words or so, I come back to food I have eaten.

As they didn’t have fish and chips ready when I went there, they said it would be 20minutes or so, as it is not something I have been hankering particularly I could wait. In the meantime I got a sausage roll and a drink of Fanta. Yep, perfectly done- I was instantly transported back to pub gardens, gossiping old nans and school dinners. I’ll have that again. Preschooler was only interested in the Fanta though- damn you multinational branding!

Then on to the main event, fish and chips with vinegar, tartare sauce and mushy peas.  It was never going to be fine dining (fish and chips is said to have been invented by Jewish immigrants who used the fact that fish isn’t considered meat or dairy in Jewish law and can be easily eaten as leftovers on Saturdays), but I don’t care. It is comfort food that I have never been a particular fan of, and then suddenly it felt like I had just found a missing limb. It was great, perfect size, uneven sized chips, and right amount of sauce, nice to taste vinegar again. It got the thumbs up from the younger one too- though like her dad she will never be a fan of “the green”. I’m in my forties and I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy mushy peas. Does this mean I have to hand in my British man card? I already don’t like football or drink booze.

We left Carrefour more than satisfied, and I’ll be back for sure if not for the fish and chips but also for the pies and sausages. Totally bang up job. All I have to do now is convert the missus…

Fish & Chips  289NT

Sausage roll – I forgot, I just ate

Address:It is in the Xindian Carrefour No. 1號, Section 3, Zhongxing Road, Xindian District, New Taipei City, 231

Closest MRT is Qizhang, but to find Churchills, they are actually in the supermarket part of the building on the 3^rd floor in the corner near the bakery section.