A Little Fishy?

Just as an aside, my weather app is telling me that the ambient outside temperature here is 22˚C, when in fact, it is 25˚C  and relatively cool here in my semi-dark dining room/office, and 29˚C outside in the shade on the patio. I wish I could figure out where the BBC and Apple apps get their meteorological data for around here from. Anyway, to heck with that: suffice to say it's hot enough for up here in Rachub whichever way you look at it...

We had our - usually monthly, but of late more occasional than truly regular - lunch club today, over at the Sea Shanty in Trearddur Bay. We were ten today, a good even number for a change, and our son's very oldest friend [toddler to his baby] was up from London to break the usual odd number of attendees at table. Notice that I use the phrase 'up from London'. This is a quite deliberate, personal inversion of the more usual turn of phrase, which to my mind is so unfortunately culturally loaded and oh, so metro-centric. Anyhow, that's just me and my opinion, and you take me and it however you wish.

On return from lunch we watched the Wimbledon Ladies [what a quaint but dreadfully outmoded usage] Singles Final on the - I was going to say box, but these days that really can't justifiably signify a television any more, given their fairly blatant un-box-like structure on the whole - TV. At one point it looked like it was going to be a fairly pallid straight-sets win just as last year; but an hour later, it was one set all and a rather different concern for participants and observers alike. Definitely a game of two halves to give the old sporting cliché yet another run before it expires of old age.

Which brings me to today's lunch. Definitely a game of two halves [oh dear...]: I opted for a starter as main, as my appetite for the now normal huge main courses is rapidly waning and to be frank becoming increasingly a source of annoyance to me; so in this case whitebait with a side of fries [can't go wrong, surely?]. For an actual starter I opted for the rather interesting-but-unusual-sounding Moroccan-style lamb bonbons with harissa sauce and pomegranate molasses. The starter was indeed excellent; the little lamb koftas soft and well-cooked, pleasantly moist in their creditably thin fried breadcrumb shells; the harissa sauce carrying a background of just-browned garlic with a good hit of harissa heat tempered by the creamy sauce, and the whole thing zinged up with the sweet/tartness of pomegranate [molasses and seeds]. Very fine and most enjoyable.

But then; O, my word, but then; my whitebait, one of nature's joys it has to be said, and a thing of culinary beauty cooked properly; turned up encased in some manner of batter (?) that was thick and dry and far too, well, oppressive for this most delicate of fish, alongside a bowl of rather lacklustre fries that had obviously stood for far too long on the pass - as had the fish - and had started to overcook and toughen as a result. The contrast between the two dishes was so marked that I really can't figure this kitchen's performance and output, out. Apparently, the whitebait is always cooked and served this way, which is mildly disturbing. The recipe definitely needs to change before I'll ever order it again. Might I suggest the traditional British way, simply dusted with flour and deep-fried and served with naught but lemon? Or maybe employ a very light tempura batter if one must have batter at all, to ensure that these delicate little creatures are not swamped by your [to be fair, misguided] culinary ambitions. Don't get me wrong; I like the place, a lot of its menu, the ambience and the staff and service there. But ruining whitebait is just plain weird, because it takes a very special effort in order to do so. I rest my case: Occam's razor applies when it comes to cooking fish...