Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The See Food Diet (oh come on, you know the punchline ...)


Curtain-up time on the Peter Hall season at Bath’s Theatre Royal always leads the restaurants around Sawclose to offer increasingly competitive pre-theatre dining deals; it surely can’t be long before one of them offers a complimentary post-supper digestif to anybody who can recite Nora Helmer’s final discourse to Torvald verbatim (after, that is, you’ve paid around £14 for two courses from a set menu between 5-7.30pm). But just around the corner, real life – meaning, in this instance, a nice, uncomplicated, budget-friendly bit of grub before digesting Ibsen’s late 19th precursor to Coronation Street – continues regardless. Although you’ll find flyers advertising all manner of forthcoming cultural events displayed in windows and scattered on counters of the cafes, casual diners and takeaways on and around Kingsmead Square, the undemanding menus and uncomplicated price structures make the area an ideal refuelling pit stop for those for whom the theatre is just another form of relaxing evening entertainment, not a major league ‘see and be seen’ event booked six months in advance because the Daily Telegraph told you to do it.

So off we go, Papa and I, to Seafoods – the delightful (honestly, it really is), traditional fish’n’chipper that’s been feeding battered, deep fried, naughty but nice yumminess to the Bath hoi polloi for over five decades. You can take your catch of the day away with you or eat it at a pavement table under the big umbrellas, but those who prefer their pre-theatre entertainment live and unrehearsed should sit inside in the cafe area. Fellow diners on the evening we visited provided a people watching feast: an expensively besuited gentleman diddling with his Blackberry, two genteel Canadian ladies bickering over their guidebooks and a girl who looked frighteningly like Jade Goody sitting with a hooded boy for whom that was obviously the main attraction, who each kept dashing off to feed chicken nuggets to a voracious Staffordshire bull terrier tied up outside. There are proper pickled eggs in jars behind the fryers, piles of ready-buttered bread (white sliced, of course) underneath a nylon tent on the counter and promises of homemade puddings on the chalk board. Faggots, pies and vegetarian sausages supplement the fish selection, and most dishes fluctuate around the £5-7 mark, with only the ‘posh’ salmon and chips, wholetail battered scampi and the Desperate Dan-style £9.99 ‘Challenge’ (two massive fish, a mushy pea lagoon and a mound of chips – eat it all, and your pudding is free) putting anything close to stress on the budget. But Medad and I always opt for haddock, chips and mushy peas because everything about it – the fresh, chunky fish fillet, the properly crisp, semi-sweet batter, the thick, satisfyingly lumpy peas – is exactly as it should be in a proper fish and chip shop. Granted, you won’t find microbrewery beer battered, sustainable Pollock served with pea puree and hand cut chips here. But portions are huge, service is swift and cheerful and even the house wine is the good side of palatable. If we were to apply Torvald Helmer’s final line to his departing wife to Bath’s pre-dinner dining scene, Seafoods is, perhaps “the greatest miracle of all”.

1 comment:

H said...

Hurrah for that. Is my takeaway chippy of choice, despite it being a very long way away from Lansdown (dahling) and there being a number of (much cheaper) alternatives closer to home.

And I also like the fact that it all comes in natty little cardboard boxes, ensuring you don't ruin the leather on the passenger seat of your urban 4x4 on the way up the hill.

And now I'm hungry.