Restaurant review: Catch of the Day flounders where Lennox's flourished
Catch of the Day on Bandon Road. The restaurant is in the former location of the iconic Cork chipper Lennox's
Can I make a confession that may well have me drummed out of my hometown? I was never a huge fan of Lennox’s chipper, especially in its latter years, and reckon its popularity and the Princess Diana-scale mourning that followed its demise was more a lament for the passing of its quintessential ‘Corkness’ than for any perceived quality of the fish and chips. Its Bandon Rd flagship is now home to Catch of the Day.
I recently saw a hugely popular online English influencer who bills himself as the ‘UK’s Number One Food Reviewer’, filmed outside Catch of the Day, critiquing what he subsequently posts online is the ‘INSANE Fish & Chips That Beat Every Spot in Ireland!’. (The poor craythur must have walked the hind legs off himself to speak with such authority as there are an awful lot of fish and chip shops in Ireland.)
I order haddock and chips (€13). Cod is the preference for most chipper customers but I’ve always preferred haddock, a more delicate, sweeter fish. Golden, crisp batter looks the part but resolves into a claggy gum where it meets fish, itself overcooked, what should be fine flakes dissolving into near mush. Of billed accompanying Dutch tartar sauce, there is no sign.
Chips are no more than fair. Not quite soggy but not especially crisp and some way off the tongue-searing temperatures you’d expect straight out of boiling fat. In another life, I cooked what probably added up to a trawler-load of deep-fried battered fish. The comparative simplicity of fish and chips as a dish leads many to think it is equally simple to cook. It is not rocket science but, as with all cooking, it requires vigilance and attention to detail: quality and density of batter; quality and temperature of the fish; and quality and temperature of cooking oil/fat.
My teenage compadre is in the market for ‘protein’, as befits any self-respecting young gym bunny. These days, most chippers run the gamut of popular fast food options. He opts for Southern-fried mini-fillets (five pieces, €6.50). Gnarly, crunchy batter on rather dry chicken is certainly ‘spiced’: problem is, I can’t identify distinguishable flavours, other than the monotone heat of cayenne pepper. They are awful.
He also opts for a potato pie, a sublimely stodgy Cork chipper staple of which we are both keen connoisseurs, maybe even ‘Cork’s No 1 Potato Pie Reviewers’, in the spirit of the new age of food reviewing. A thin skin of batter has collapsed in the seconds it takes to transport it from counter to dining shelf, the mashed potato, a sludgy, dense gum with a vague suggestion of thyme. Cork’s No 1 Potato Pie Reviewers will be handing out no merit badges here. Maybe Lennox’s wasn’t so bad after all.
- Bill: €21.50
- catchoftheday.ie
