Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Rock and Sole Plaice


Recommended Posts

My wife was disappointed on her last visit (I could not go). Has it changed or was it just having a bad day?

"Last week Uncle Vinnie came over from Sicily and we took him to the Olive Garden. The next day the family car exploded."

--Nick DePaolo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My family and I just ate there for dinner last month, and our impressions are mixed. We ordered three kinds of fish-and-chip platters (cod, haddock, and rock), a fish cake, and mushy peas. We were told there would be a fifteen minute wait for sole or plaice, so we settled for the quicker. The batter coating the fish was delicious and crisp. Cod was our collective favorite: light and flaky and tasty. Second came haddock, very flavorful. Rock came in third because of its too-dense, tough texture. The fish cake was good. The mushy peas? Just mushy peas; I'm afraid none of us "gets" the appeal of mushy peas.

The big disappointment for us was the chips: they were not crisp at all, just limp and soft. My family takes chips/fries verrrrrrry seriously, so limp chips are a major demerit.

I went to sleep on a full stomach of this meal and woke in the morning with a stomach ache. It was the first time this cast-iron stomach has ever failed me after a fried meal. Don't know whether it was the meal or me.

In short, ehh. We'll try another fish-and-chips place next time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chips are meant to be soggy, aren't they?

And the queasy, bilious feeling of your internal organs desperately trying to produce enough acid and bile to emulsify the fat is a necessary part of the experience.

What I don't get about Rock & Sole Plaice is why they don't have vinegar but have water/colouring/industrial acetic acid instead.

Here's a link to a story about good chippies: Terry Durack

I also rather like the North Sea Fish Restaurant in Bloomsbury.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chips are meant to be soggy, aren't they?

. . . .

I also rather like the North Sea Fish Restaurant in Bloomsbury.

No, seriously, good chips start out crisp.

Ironically, the best fish and chips I have had, despite having lived for a year in England and visited again recently, are found at Murphy's, an Irish restaurant and pub in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia, just outside of D.C. and near where I lived, thank goodness.

North Sea Fish was on our itinerary, but a sudden rainshower as we walked through Bloomsbury Square was the last straw for my two chiuldren, who pleaded to return to the hotel room with some take-out Cornish pasties. After the experience of the soggy crisps at Rock and Sole Plaice (the first chippy we tried in London), the kids lost all interest in fish and chips and asked for Cornish pasties every chance they got.

Other reputedly good chippies that we never managed to try last month: Fryer's Delight (Holborn), Sea Shell (Marylebone), and Costas Fish (Notting Hill).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i now work about 35 metres away from the rock and sole plaice and went their yesterday. after i'd picked at my meal i checked the sign outside as i couldn't believe that this could have been the same plaice ;-)

the chips were soggy in parts and pointy crisp* in others, my haddock appeared to be wearing a jacket, and not a velour smoking jacket, no, a donkey jacket made out of hay and all my colleagues had cod so i had to keep whispering "save the cod, save the cod" whenever the conversation lulled. the only good thing was the mushy peas.

so, let me check, is the rock and sole plaice you all speak of on endell street in high holborn and was i in an imposter chipshop?

*technical term for what happens when chips are unevenly cut and are then fried and they become thin and glasslike in parts

Suzi Edwards aka "Tarka"

"the only thing larger than her bum is her ego"

Blogito ergo sum

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice to see the Sea Cow mentioned in the Independent article - it has a fresh fish counter, refectory tables for communal eating, decent wines and more exotic varieties of fish.

But I know most of you would never dare venture south of the river...oh well, your loss :wink:

Gav

"A man tired of London..should move to Essex!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm just loving the fact that this thread is being posted to by an otter and a whiting.

. . . a Whiting from Cape Cod, in fact.

Large hand-cut English chips aren't traditionally as crisp as French fries. With their irregular shape, they would be partly crisp and partly burned (which, with the contemporary taste for crispness, they frequently are). As for the dryness of French fries, that is usually accomplished these days with transfats; it isn't acheived with lard, which is what Fryer's Delight uses. (But I haven't eaten there in several years; maybe they've gone downhill.)

Edited by John Whiting (log)

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Indeed, it is on Endell Street and near the Opera House.

"Last week Uncle Vinnie came over from Sicily and we took him to the Olive Garden. The next day the family car exploded."

--Nick DePaolo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My family and I just ate there for dinner last month, and our impressions are mixed. We ordered three kinds of fish-and-chip platters (cod, haddock, and rock), a fish cake, and mushy peas. We were told there would be a fifteen minute wait for sole or plaice, so we settled for the quicker. The batter coating the fish was delicious and crisp. Cod was our collective favorite: light and flaky and tasty. Second came haddock, very flavorful. Rock came in third because of its too-dense, tough texture. The fish cake was good. The mushy peas? Just mushy peas; I'm afraid none of us "gets" the appeal of mushy peas.

The big disappointment for us was the chips: they were not crisp at all, just limp and soft. My family takes chips/fries verrrrrrry seriously, so limp chips are a major demerit.

I went to sleep on a full stomach of this meal and woke in the morning with a stomach ache. It was the first time this cast-iron stomach has ever failed me after a fried meal. Don't know whether it was the meal or me.

In short, ehh. We'll try another fish-and-chips place next time.

It's a little known fact but the Rock and Sole Plaice has a second branch on Fairfax Rd., off Finchley Road, near the Finchley Road tube station. It is run by the same family and I used to eat their fish and chips ever since they opened (probably going on three years now).

Their fried fish and chips was (I say was because I don't live in the UK any longer and last had their fish and chips last December) better than the original Covent Garden branch.

Foodie Penguin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's a little known fact but the Rock and Sole Plaice has a second branch on Fairfax Rd., off Finchley Road, near the Finchley Road tube station. It is run by the same family and I used to eat their fish and chips ever since they opened (probably going on three years now).

That's very interesting. We live in Hampstead Garden Suburb, only a couple of miles from the Finchley Road station. Next on our list . . .

Edited by John Whiting (log)

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Had lunch here last week and was dissapointed.

I had the halibut and while the batter was superlative, the fish was dry and the chips were ... well, let's just say that I agree with the other comments regarding the chips...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think Rock & Sole Plaice is any good: I still think that the chips should be soggy, but those at R&SP are horrible, misshapen greenish things which don't even have any decent vinegar to accompany them: just industrial acetic acid, caramel colouring and water.

The fish is fine, but it's pricey for what it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...