Cowfold Seagull
Fan of the 17 bus
Riddle & Finns (the one on the beach), BN1
“Welcome to the best restaurant in town”, said our waiter, Louis (pronounced Louie) as he presented the menu to us.
“Yes, we’re looking forward to it. We’re having a fishy weekend; we’re off to Little Fish Market tomorrow night too”.
His face fell. “Oh. Now that probably is the best restaurant in town”.
The GLDHI and I shared a raised eyebrow look.
He brought a basket of OK+ bread, accompanied by excellent dips, particularly a mackerel pate.
I ordered 6 oysters as an amuse bouche - 3 Jersey natives and 3 rock, and proceeded to enjoy them one by one, much to the jealousy of the GLDHI, who loves oysters, but is violently sick after eating them. They were fresh, and utterly delicious.
“Yes”, said Looie, “We really do do good oysters”.
Another eyebrow-raising moment was shared at the implication that the rest of the food wasn’t so good.
“Is that a carrot you have tattooed on your thumb?”, I asked Looee as he came to remove the shells. “*Sigh*. Everyone thinks that. I think it’s because it looks like a carrot when I have my thumb straight. I had my thumb bent when I had the tattoo done. It’s a jalapeño; look”. Sure enough, it looked like a jalapeño when he bent his thumb. He also had the word “slowly” inked just above the wrist. Perhaps that was an instruction from his girlfriend? Or possibly it morphs into a giraffe when he flexes his wrist?
Out come our starters: tempura tiger prawns for me, sea bass ceviche for the GLDHI. The prawns were large, but they were NOT tempura. The batter was standard fish and chip shop batter, not the light batter that is, err, the definition of “tempura”. They were grossly over-cooked. The ceviche was 80% lettuce, 10% mayo, 10% sea bass. When you could find a piece of fish, it was fine.
More eyebrow raising.
Then came the mains: Dover sole, skinny fries, and greens for me; Kerala fish curry for the GLDHI. The sole was grossly over-cooked (go to the Plough in Bolnhurst for how it should be done), the chips were greasy, the fish in the curry was sparse and, err, grossly over-cooked. The greens were perfect.
Louee brought the bill, and a “comments” card. The GLDHI wrote “Louis was awesome”. He was. I took the card and added “But the fish was grossly over-cooked”. It was.
The GLDHI was horrified, and dashed out of the restaurant. “That was mean...I really need a pee, and I couldn’t go in there; the chefs have knives”. I shrugged. “There’s public toilets just up here back towards the Palace Pier”. “Oh, yes”, she said.
They were locked. Much hilarity ensued.
We had a couple of (cheap, very cheap) single malts in the Black Dove, where an old school DJ (he was playing vinyl ffs) played Cuban dance music and old school rock and roll. Brilliant.
Outside the pub, we met a woman with a ferret on a lead. She sat at the table next to us and was explaining to her table companions that the ferret loved to be with her pet rat, until the rat died, adding “I didn’t know what to do with the rat, so I’ve put him in the freezer until I decide where to bury him”.
“That’s going in the review”, I said to the GLDHI. She smiled and nodded, “Yes, dear”.
TL;DR: by all means go. Just don’t order any fish that they’ve, you know, had to, err, cook.
Give our regards to Louey.
Hmmmm . . . I can see it being a problem when a fish restaurant ove ooks the very ingredient that everyone goes there for, errr . . . fish.
Brilliantly written review by the way.