One place we forgot to make mention while we were in London was a fish and
chips place that we had gone to. This place supposedly was one of the
better fish and chip places in London although many will argue that there are
plenty of those all over London. The place we went to that night was the
Rock And Sole Plaice which was located near the London Eye. We didn’t
have reservations as it was about 8pm so we figured the place would have
emptied out by then. When we got there, that motion was quickly dashed as
the entire restaurant on the main floor on the inside and on their patio
outside were completely full. Luckily for us, this restaurant has a
basement level and it just so happened that a family of four had just
left. We got in and were given a seat right away. We were given out
menus and a waitress soon took our order.
The interesting aspect of the menu was that there was
plenty of fish to choose from, so much so that one had to sit there and say
which one?? There were just so many
different types that we needed the waitress to filter out the best from the
worse. She said some of the fish were really
salty, some were a little fishy and some were just bland. After some hemming and hawing we decided to
go with the calamari, the skate and the halibut. We also got a couple of nice English London Pride beers to celebrate
this evening.
Calamari and Chips
The calamari arrived first and this looked stunningly
good. There were about 6 huge pieces of
calamari in front of us. We cut the
first piece open and steam was flying out of it like there was no tomorrow. The
meat of the squid was ultra smooth on the inside. The calamari was definitely fresh and tasted beautifully. The batter was crispy and the tarter sauce was excellent!! The
fries were amazing but truthfully no one was here for the fries.
The skate fish was interesting. For those who didn't know, it’s
actually shark fin and for those who have never had shark fin before, it’s mainly all bones,
both hard and soft. The cartilaginous part of the fin was edible but closer to
the distal part of the fin, the bones were harder and therefore not
chewable. There really wasn’t a whole
lot of taste to it either but one would not expect it to be anyways since it
was mostly cartilage. As you get closer to the harder parts of the bone, one would need to just suck the meat of the bone. Compared to the calamari, I think I would have prefer the former over the latter. More meat and less bone!!
Skate and Chips
The halibut was the best fish of them all. Like the calamari, the meat was so soft, so
tender and very juicy. There was a
slight saltiness to it as well which made the halibut a cut above the
rest. The meat did not flake off and at
first taste, one can tell that this was one fresh halibut that was served to
us. The waitress mentioned to us that
because of the high turnover especially with halibut, that it was possible for
them to get fresh halibut in there almost on a daily basis. One can certainly appreciate the gesture as
it sure does distinguishes them from one fish and chips place to the next. The halibut was very very smooth and the batter was once again cooked to perfection.
Halibut and Chips
I think I would have given them an easy five out of five if
it wasn’t for the skate. Truthfully it wasn’t really the fault of the owners however if you were to sell me something
that is just as expensive as the other two to eat, I would expect to be able to eat the
whole thing. The unfortunate part of the skate
was that much of it was bone and only ¼ of the meal was edible. My recommendation was that it was probably
best left off the menu rather than being on it. The other interesting part was that when it came to paying, one
had to go back upstairs to the cashier to pay. The upstairs
at most is about 450 square feet and even though it was like around ten at night,
there were lots of people inside the restaurant and there was a line up
still all the way outside the door!! Even a
couple of local policemen decided to take a break and order a couple of meals
from this place. With all these people
milling about it could have been so easy for anyone to have just walked out of
there and not pay. I thought it was
quite bizarre as I watched from across the street the “chaos” that was before
me. In the end the food was good and
something I would highly recommend.
Avoid the skate fish and you will have a pretty good evening. Overall, I give it a 4.5 out of 5.
Rock and Sole Plaice
47 Endell St London WC2H 9AJ, United Kingdom
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