04 January 2008

British Invasion: Bay Ridge; In Cod We Trust























Oi! The Ol' Chip Shop is coming to Bay Ridge.

They've already got two stores; the original in the Slope on 5th Avenue and Sixth street and the somewhat new one on Atlantic betwixt Clinton & Henry, and now these blokes wanna open another spot on 72nd and 3rd, righ' ear 'n bloody Lake Wobegon. (photo hijacked from Right In Bay Ridge)

The Chip Shop sells traditionally bland English chip shop food. Things like fish & chips, tomatoes & beans, bangers & mash (thats Brit for sausage and mashed potatoes), kidney pie, mushy peas and fried Snickers bars. No, seriously.

Chip Shop is also famous for doing all this fucked up shit like frying Twinkies and Yodels but I've never fucked with that. Fried Oreo is as far as I'll go.

The Chip Shop's pride and joy, their chips, are OK but nothing to write mum about.

I've sampled chips all over the world from Bruxelles to Eindhoven, London to Edinburgh and I still say Pommes Frites on 2nd Avenue does it the best. For real. They were the first in the city doing the chip thing and they've got it down. Americanised just enough.

Most chips you get across the pond are blond, greasy and always a tad undercooked. That's just how they roll over there. Why the fuck else do you think the Brits are so damn gloomy and prolific?

I've had chips at 3 a.m. in a dark back alley snack shop in Cardiff wrapped in yesterdays Herald. I've had 'em steaming bloody murder in Camden Town across the street from The World's End. I've had them swimming in mayonnaise in Maastricht and doused in that bizarre sweet n' watery ketchup in Boevange-sur-Attert... and I swear, our very own Pommes Frites does it best.*

Anyway, we'll see what the Bay Ridgers think of it.

Just drown whatever you've ordered in malt vinegar and salt and it'll taste legit; like you've just stepped onto the tarmac at Heathrow.

*Runner-up to A Salt And Battery which used to stand about 50 yards from Pomme Frites but recently relocated to the West Village near St. Vincents over on Greenwich Avenue between 12th and 13th street.

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