h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The americans call our crisps "chips" so are probaby confused by this whole forum.

oh. paranoia. i forgot about that. must remember the paranoia...hmm...i'll write it down somewhere since my mental notes system is down.... yes......sorry...
~Lisa

Well, THIS American soitainly knows whereof you chip-fans are speaking (but then I was blessed by growing up in God's own green and pleasant land where the chips are always tasty). Aye, lads & lasses - 'twas back in 1976 that I was fetched across t'Atlantic to Blighty as a wee nipper of 3½.

I've lived in Lancashire, Essex, Kent, Birmingham, Telford, Surrey / London and Birmingham again. 23 years later I've now returned to the land of my birth (although not the state) and reside in Hollyweird.

I would indeed commit some light mayhem for a good ol' bag of British chips, drowned in salt & vinegar! Pardon me while I fall into a chip-missing delirium....

I really hate to do this, but someone has to mention the best and greatest artery clogging treat in all of the civilized world, just across the channel, and Northward a few miles-to the forgotten land of the windmill.

Yes, G.B. has delicious (and, might I add world renowned)chips, but Het Nederlands (Holland)has a potato treat that once eaten, will spoil you to any other tuberous extrusion, sliced, diced or chunked.

Cut in Julienne strips, by a sweat soaked street vendor to 1/2" in size, and the length of the potato, they are fried in used motor oil (or something)at high temperatures, which cause the product to emerge with a golden brown crust, that remains crispy to the bottom of the oil soaked (always double) bag. A true Hollander (or visitor, who has been properly educated)then dips them in a mysterious mayonnaise-type sauce that can not exist anywhere above sea level.

Wonderous things, those patat frites, (spelled phonetically, because I don't remember the real spelling.) They would probably kill you in less than a year, (if eaten every day) but what a way to go.

OOPS, Sorry. I forgot the question was, "where in London?" Oh well.

The best chips in London, and possibly the Galaxy, are to be found in The Fryer's Delight, on Theobald's Road, WC1. It's quite near to Holborn Tube station. The chips are chunky, the bread & butter is very thick & crusty and the staff are real characters. I could go on, but i'm getting hungry...

Just for a lark, I clicked on a red dot at random to revive some interesting old conversation. This one really made me feel homesick.

I agree. A chip should be at least 1/2 " thick and should not stand up straight when held vertically. Instant cardiac arrest - and, definitely THE way to go.

The original way to eat 'em, according to my godfather, before the war this was, but it went on up to somewhere in the sixties at least, was on newspaper - you piled em on, poured the vinegar and salt on and folded the newspaper over, then turned the whole parcel over and the vinegar and fat had soaked through the newspaper. You made a little hole in the soaked paper and extracted the chips from there.

The problem is that the EU have inflicted standards on potatoes and the chippie people probably have trouble finding a kind that really fries to the right consistency.

To make a really good chip, you need to fry it slowly at a medium temperature to cook the potato, then move it to a different fat and fry it quickly at a high temperature to provide the crisp outer coating. There are still some chip shops around which do this.

McDonalds Fries are made by boiling potatoers, mashing them, assembling them into thin strips which look like anorexic chips, then frying them. They therefore do not deserve the name chips and should be referred to only as fries.

Where I come from, a fry means something else entirely: it's got rashers and sausages in it. I encountered the ultimate fried breakfast Mrs B's B&B in Bognor Regis:

Fried sausages, fried rashers of bacon, fried egg, black pudding, fried bread, fried tomatoes and baked beans.