The Fish and Chips Review: Preliminaries

Boston, for all its apparently British character, has a conspicuous dearth of good fish and chips. And this is totally unnecessary.

Now there are two aspects to this lack of good fish and chips: the first is that there aren't any "chippies," or in other words places which deal exclusively in fried fish and potatoes. These are ubiquitous in big cities in the UK (although they're of varying quality). In the US in general cheap casual spots are going to deal in something like pizza or "bowls", and neither of those kinds of places are liable to have any fish on the menu at all. Chicken tenders are the closest you really get, which are cheap and widely beloved, so there's no demand for fried fish. I suppose some restaurants will have fish sticks available but that's if you're lucky; usually you don't get any fried fish option!

The second aspect to the lack of good fish and chips in Boston is that the fish and chips we DO have usually aren't any good. Soggy, weird piles of "food." Frankly even good fish and chips is kind of a strange dish, food for the insensate, an overwhelming heap which acts kind of like cement or sand in the stomach. I'm pretty sure it's almost totally indigestible; great for soaking up a hangover though. Anyways I want to start a list of every fish and chips in Boston and find the good ones. My points of critique are the following:

Batter. Is it light, crispy, good-tasting, and generally well-made? Bonus points for beer in the batter. Is the oil which the fish was fried in clean-tasting, or does it have other flavors - burnt grease, other foods, etc - mixed into it? MAJOR negative points for a non-batter coating, ie breadcrumbs or cornflakes or whatever.

Fish. Is the fish fresh? Does it have a good texture? Is it cooked properly? Is the fillet well-sized or measly? Does it taste nice?

Chips/fries. I'll award bonus points for having actual chippy chips, big fat fries, instead of typical American fries, but it's a little silly to expect a restaurant to serve chipper chips to patrons who probably don't want them. Are they hot, crispy, not overly oily? Critical: are there enough of them? Too often you only get like a handful... Bonus points for freshly-cut fries.

Accoutrements. To me the indispensable condiments for F&C are malt vinegar, tartar sauce, and copious amounts of salt. If these are present then any plate gets a passing grade - but attention will be paid to the quality of the tartar sauce. I like a chunky, thicker kind, not runny or too plain. Tartar sauce is essentially mayonnaise, which on top of a bunch of fried food would be entirely redundant if not for the gherkins and shallots etc which it carries. Lemon is unessential, but very welcome. Bonus points for curry sauce.

In general I won't be awarding bonus points for particularly "well-flavored" F&C, with spices or the like in the batter or the fries or whatever, since I don't think that F&C is a dish that is improved by more flavors. The point is that it's rather plain on its own. But I'll make due note of those F&C's which are more highly-flavored than others.

I think these are the basic components of F&C, and other than minor aspects of taste I don't think anything here is too controversial. One last note about ratings - I'll be doing ratings out of 10, with 5–7 being essentially average (the minimum requirement for paying for food at a restaurant); between 0–5 means "not worth ordering," and 7–10 means outstanding. A 10/10 wouldn't necessarily mean that a plate is "the best fish and chips ever," I like the sticky toffee pudding guy's way of putting it: a 10/10 is "the one to beat." The purpose isn't really to find the best fish and chips in Boston but to ensure that high standards are being upheld all around. And, again, I don't think the above standards are really all that crazy.

My reviews will be forthcoming, especially over the summer I hope. I encourage everybody to engage in a similar pursuit and share their results, maybe even on their own blog.