Tempura-fried haddock

Last month I was attending a conference and meeting at Luleå in Sweden. I travelled from London Heathrow, then there was a layover in Stockholm before flying up to Luleå. Having had a great time in Luleå I made my way home. The flight from Luleå to Stockholm was fine, I then made my way to the departure gate for my flight to Heathrow. 

However…

This was the day that the air traffic control system at Heathrow failed and over a thousand flights were cancelled.

My flight was that evening, after a delay SAS cancelled it. With the number of cancellations, the earliest flight SAS could rebook me onto was three days later. So, SAS booked me a hotel for three days. The hotel was the Sandic Star Sollentuna was a really nice hotel. The restaurant was nice and served a good breakfast and there was a nice choice of meals from the menu in the evening.

On my first night I was too late for dinner, on the second night, I had Swedish Style Steak & Fries.

On my third night I had two courses, I started off with the shrimp Skagen mix on warm sourdough bread.

For my main course I went with the tempura-fried haddock, shrimp, new potatoes, grilled green asparagus, crisp salad, mango aioli, lemon and whitefish roe.

plate of food

After the nice steak the night before, and my nice shrimp Skagen, I was expecting another good plate of food. However, though the potatoes, salad, and mango aioli were nice, the whole dish was let down by the fish. I don’t know why I was expecting fresh cooked fish, what I got was something overly processed. I am guessing it was straight out of the freezer and into the fryer. 

Overall I was quite disappointed.

Haddock Goujons

It was a grey Wednesday in Bristol, so I headed off to the Finzel Reach street food market to get some lunch. It wasn’t as busy as it can be, so the queues were shorter.

Across the Bristol street food market, one stall stands out as being slightly different and that is King Fin, which sells freshly cooked seafood.

street food stall

Over my many visits to King Fin I have enjoyed many different kinds of fish dishes. My usual and my favourite has to be the calamari. I also enjoyed the monkfish tempura when I had that last year. The soft shell crab burger was a great concept, but I do feel it lacked the intense crab flavour I would like from it. I was though less impressed with the fritto misto I had back in 2022.

One of their offerings I have never tried is their fish wrap with fries. This week it was haddock goujons with pea puree, tartare sauce, lettuce, in a wrap with double cooked fries and house sauce. Other times they have had cod goujons on the board.

As they messed up someone else’s order (who didn’t want tartare sauce) I got my food quite quickly.

wrap and chips

As the fish was wrapped the photographs doesn’t really do the food justice. The haddock was cooked well, and I liked the crispy coating. The pea puree was quite rough, but I liked that it added texture and taste. The double cooked fries were a little limp, with double cooking fries, I like them to be crisp on the outside and fluffy in the inside.

Overall though it was a delicious dish, which I really enjoyed,  and would certainly have again.

I fancied the idea of fish and chips

I was in London and staying at the Fox and Goose close to Hangar Lane. This is a Fullers Hotel and is part of the same chain at Drayton Court, which I have stayed at for a few times now. When I was staying at the Drayton Court Hotel I had some excellent meals. The Fox and Goose had a slightly different menu than the Drayton Court, but there were similarities. 

That evening I really fancied the idea of fish and chips after my excellent steak starter.

The menu described this as Fuller’s Frontier battered haddock, triple cooked chips, crushed minted peas, tartare sauce, lemon.

The plate had a large portion of fish, the batter was nice and crisp and it was cooked well. I quite enjoy the crushed minted peas and it was a nice accompaniment to the dish.

Well, I was looking forward to the triple cooked chips, but what I got was fries. They were nice, but they weren’t triple cooked chips! Sometimes when I order a dish I want fries, but other times I want triple cooked chips. Having said that, these were nice fries.

Overall a great plate of food and filled that craving for fish and chips.