TOFF'S:MATZO'D IN MUSWELL HILL

Another trip to the outer reaches of the known Universe, well Muswell Hill, to try and find London’s best Fish and Chips. Luckily, there was a bus to take me from my doorstep and drop me off right outside Toff’s in Muswell Hill Broadway (and luckily a downhill walk all the way back).

Toff’s has been around for about forty years or so and on my visit on a Saturday morning it was bustling and packed with a mixture of locals and the odd camera-toting tourist. I was asked by one of them about the origin of the fish knife but my rather hopeless reply was that it was to lift the flakes of fish rather than cut them and that it was historical. I could have said that fights were always breaking out in chippies and the blunt oddly-shaped knife was less likely to inflict a mortal wound, but that would have been just cruel and unusual treatment of tourists. I leave that to HS.

The menu covers all the usual fishy bases and this being North London you can get your fish cooked in Matzo instead of batter. I’d had a good experience with the Matzo method at Nautilus a few months ago so I’d decided to give my Haddock the same treatment again.

To get things going I tried Toff’s Fish cakes. Anthony Bourdain, during his world travels, talks about mystery meats, the non-specific meat that appears in local dishes of stew or pie (hmmmm…pie). I’ve a new category, mystery fish, as in it’s a mystery what sort of fish is in my fish cakes. As well as not really tasting of anything the fish cakes also had a rather tough coating.

The matzo had done the job of protecting my Haddock which was firm and flaked nicely. Unfortunately, the coating was very dry in texture and so was the fillet. Maybe because it was a little thin. Nothing wrong with the fish though which was fresh and tasty.

The supporting acts were a bit of a mixed bag: chips were very good, peas were ok and pickles came in the form of a couple of those long dill pickles (another North London regular). Tartare sauce was too heavy on the mayo. Tea was weak.

I doubt there’s much competition in the area but Toff’s, although a nice enough joint to spend an lunch hour in struck me as overpriced for what it delivers – a trip westwards to Nautilus would yield better.

PS And please note I didn't use a single limp pun about the place. Shit.

TWO BROTHERS

Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard
I just read the Daily News and swear by every word

I’m not a happy man. I’m not a happy man especially when I have to go to the burbs. I don’t mind the countryside. I don’t mind small market towns but the burbs just don’t do it for me. They’re neither one thing o the other. They’re just so dull, with their neat little rows of houses with neat little gardens and neat little lives, it’s truly death by a thousand trouser presses.

My definition of the burbs is any area where the Tube runs overground. So you can imagine my shock yesterday when my misery line train to visit Two Brothers Fish Restaurant suddenly went from under to over. Two Brothers is near Finchley Central Station on Regent’s Park Road and it seemed a reasonable assumption that this was just north of Regent’s Park. In fact it’s north of Brent Cross which is the furthest I’ve ever been in thirty years of living in London. Still, a long journey can be worth it if there’s something nice and tasty at the end.

This journey wasn’t worth it. I have to say my meal at Two Brothers was not one of the better ones in London to date. As the name suggests this outfit does more than F&C, so as I was pretty famished I thought I’d try one of their specials as a starter.
Slightly chewy chunks of Baby Squid came floating in a small pond which tasted like an amalgam of butter, lemon and a lot of garlic. The Squid would have been improved by having a little colour, the sauce was not unpleasant, just odd. The whole was overpriced at six quid something.

I’d fancied trying some Plaice on the bone cooked in Matzo. My late, sometime dining companion Tony Finch used to rave about how good it was when well done. Me, I’m more of a batter man. Plaice wasn’t in season but they had fillets. I sussed that this meant frozen fish and decided to go for the Haddock in batter. Now, I’m going to take some of the responsibility for what happened next (because I’m quite thick, innit) but looking at the picture of my F&C it’s evidently NOT Haddock in batter but instead the dead spit of Plaice in Matzo. All I saw was a plate of Fish and Chips with an odd looking batter covering the fish. I started tucking in. It only dawned on me that they’d served the me wrong dish after I’d wolfed down a fair bit. Doh.

It was terrible anyway – the fish was completely mushy inside and I thought the Matzo coating overcooked (or maybe this is how Matzo comes) – but I really didn’t want to get into the sort of argument where they ask you why you’ve already eaten half of it. I did mention it to the waitress but all she did was blame the kitchen and charge me the Haddock price, which was cheaper…I hope. Another couple had the same problem, but they were a bit more clued up and sent their dishes back straight away.

When meals go wrong (could I sell this title to Cable TV, I wonder) I just want to get the hell out of Dodge. Unfortunately, this was a cue for the service to grind to a halt when my distracted waitress decided to have a serious chinwag with her mates. Eventually, I managed to escape and get a train back to civilisation.

I would have to say that Two Brothers is the perfect suburban restaurant. People of Finchley - knock yourselves out.

FISH BONE

This endless afternoon
It started on the day I met her

The latest in a long line of attempts to find a decent London chippy came about by accident. I had originally schlepped down to Chelsea convinced that the new Tom Aikens gaff would be open. Of course it wasn’t – the builders and er…decorators were in. All a bit embarrassing given the large amount of publicity his new joint has received and that only the other day TA himself was yakking on about…well let the man himself explain:

“Over at our new fish and chip restaurant, T*m’s Pl**ce, we try to increase awareness by handing out cards with information on the fishing industry and talking to the customers to see what they know about the fish they are eating or how it gets from the sea to them.”

So maybe I was wrong. The restaurant was open after all and the customers were eating off workbenches - a new spin on the idea of utilitarian chic in restaurant interior design. Either that or the guy’s a lying manipulative melonfarmer.

After an hour of flânerie I found myself walking past Fish Bone. A Fish and Chip shop/restaurant that DH had meant to try exactly a year ago when we visited Back to Basics. I’m just glad the younger Hermano’s choice held sway, Fish Bone was pretty ropey.

There’s actually not much of a restaurant area in Fish Bone – a couple of tables at the front where the takeaway is and a handful of two-tops in a narrow room at the back. The clientele were exclusively solo male diners whose reading matter du jour appeared to be Racing Post.

It’s run by Greeks so there are one or two dishes from that area but otherwise it’s your straightforward F&C. I started with some Calamari which came as greasy, chewy rings of squid. The sort you all know and love from those cod-US diners that we Brits seem to specialise in. The Fish and Chips followed soon after. Unfortunately, they were the second worst I’ve had in London - Sea Shell holds the wooden spoon (or should that be fork).

The batter was far too flimsy and greasy and hadn’t provided the necessary shell (or carapace if you will) to protect the delicate Haddock underneath, The result was a fish – possibly frozen - cooked to a catfood-like mush. It was one of those very rare occasions where I failed to finish everything on the plate. I did notice that there was an option to have fish cooked in Matzo meal and judging from another diner’s Cod and Chips this might have been a better bet.

Like eating an overcooked steak, having a duff plate of Fish and Chips is a totally dispiriting affair - ploughing your way through all that carbohydrate for little payback. Ok, in terms of life’s slings and arrows it doesn’t compare with say divorce, getting the sack or moving house but sometimes, just sometimes, it does feel right up there.