The Great Fish and Chips Search

Friday afternoon blogging: what do you expect, economics? No, my attention shifts elsewhere...

Being the son of an Englishwoman I was bred with an appreciation for fine English cuisine. And there is no finer example of the fine art of English cooking than fish and chips. Okay so maybe you think it is low-brow, but there is not much worse than fish and chips done badly - it becomes a greasy, slimy, tasteless fat fiesta. But done well, the batter is crisp and the fish is moist and juicy and wonderful.

In the US, bad is the norm and good is elusive in the fish and chips world. So I am always on the lookout for good spot. The worst offense in my mind is to try and make it too fancy - using bread crumbs and spices and fancying up the fries just misses the point. Also using too much batter and - gasp - overcooking it are crimes against humanity.

It is a typical pub food and as Oregon is awash with good pubs, you often find it on the menu. But one suspects that in most cases this is just because the pub thinks it 'should' and is not really serious about it. I keep trying however because I am determined to find a great spot for fish and chips.

The best I have had in the last few years was at the McMenamins Corvallis. One summer day me mum and I arrived and both ordered the F&C and a little while later were told that they would be delayed as a new batch of batter had to be whipped up. I suspect this was to our great fortune as, after a wait, the meals arrived piping hot, with absolutely perfectly cooked fish on top of McMenamins perfectly unadorned fries. Mum said it was fabulous and I agreed. But subsequent visits to that and other McPubs have not yielded as good results - the kitchen does not pay enough attention usually is my conclusion - but is probably the best I have yet found on average. Deschutes pub in Portland tries to be too fancy, as does the Rogue pubs, the Thirsty Lion yesterday was decent but not memorable and the Pilsner Room/McCormick and Schmicks use too much/too fancy batter. Glaringly, I have never tried the fish and chips at the Horse Brass, which might be expected to have the best.

So I ask you, fellow fish and chips enthusiasts, where to go next in my quest?

Fish & Chips: The Verdict....So Far

[Note: Spring term begins today and I am in scramble mode after a spring break entirely consumed by illness. The tally: two double ear infections, one viral chest infection, one pneumonia, two colds and counting... Anyway, this is just to say a quick post on F&C (which the pneumonia kid got as a treat) and more blogging tomorrow - I hope]

Well, my search for authentic British fish and chips is over: the perfectly titled "The Fish and Chip Shop" on N. Killingsworth in Portland is a marvel. Absolutely perfect fish and chips in every way and lots of other gastronomic wonders from the Old Country like scotch eggs and, my favorite, Irn Bru soda from Scotland!

Both the fish and chips were exceptionally well done and you have a fine choice of fish. My son and I had the Cod and the Halibut to compare and we both decided, surprisingly, that the Cod was better.

One caveat, this is true British style fish and chips, meaning the batter is thick so as to make the fish finger food. If you are looking for lighter batter necessitating the use of a fork and knife, the pub route might be a better choice (and if you want beer - The Fish and Chip Shop does not serve alcohol). My current front runner on the pub front is the New Old Lompoc's Oaks Bottom (and perhaps it is the same at all of their pubs). The Fish and Chip Shop is a very small place and seems reasonably busy so a call ahead for take-out is probably a good option. But this is truly it: the holy grail for fans of British fish and chips. I look forward to taking me mum there on her next visit.

Enjoy.

The Fish and Chip Shop

The Fish and Chip Shop owner Mick Shillingford was kind enough to comment on my post praising his business. Here are his thoughts, hoisted from the comments:

Thanks for coming to the fish and chip shop! Here's a quick update. I'm expanding the dining area (within the next 30 days) so seating room should double. Also I applied for a beer and wine license. People like beer with their F&C yes? Soon hopefully. The cod is fresh year round, I buy true cod over ling, the halibut season started last week so I have fresh and previously frozen right now.(not sure what you guys tried) The market price for fresh is up a little right now. I'm told due to the volcano and the weather in alaska. But it should drop back down soon. ... Also fyi the portion sizes went up, we stopped using lettuce for garnish and switched to green checkered paper. Our menu also has fish and chip combos now, as well as our ala carte menu which seemed to just create confusion. I'm sure as we grow there will be more changes to improve service and quality. Thanks for all the great comments on the F&C. Much appreciated! See ya at the chippy!

A few notes in response:

One, the picture I grabbed from this article (and should have credited, sorry!) because it was pretty and I forgot to snap a pic or two. What I really wanted was a closeup of the storefront, but alas, the internets failed me. Anyway, the lettuce garnish was indeed absent from our plates (which is a good thing, because then you feel guilty that you are not eating any leafy greens - unless you want to eat the leaf under your chips...).

Two, the service was great - fast, friendly and casual. They also have a great kids menu and my son had a good time coloring Mikey the Fish. I am not a professional restaurant reviewer so I don't tend to think about all the stuff I should cover.

Three, they had a great flat screen TV showing football (er, soccer) - it was a Barca v. Mallorca replay when we were there. Learning that Mick hails from London however raises the ugly spectre that it is entirely possible that he is a Tottenham supporter, which, if true, would be too terrible to contemplate... Say it 'aint so Mick! Of course my Grandad thought I must have been switched at birth for supporting Arsenal and not his beloved QPR so there you go.

Fourth, the news that you might soon be able to enjoy a beer with your fish and chips is too wonderful to contemplate. One wonders how far Mick will go to stock British beers given his superhuman efforts to stock British soda. The thought of a good fish and chips with a pint of Theakston's Best Bitter? Oh the rapture!

Hmmm, I am hungry again....

Fish and Chips Update

Thanks for all the good advice about places to try fish and chips.  Today, on a lark, I tried the Oaks Bottom Public House which is a part of the New Old Lompoc empire.  Good thing too, the fish was perfect: light crispy batter and juicy steaming fish inside.  I was the only person at that time ordering food, so my order came right away and it was clearly the only thing the kitchen had going on, so it is possible that the quality will decline with a busy kitchen, but this time at least it was done perfectly.  The chips were good as well, however they were seasoned with paprika, I think, or perhaps cayenne pepper, so that was a bit weird and took away from the fish a bit, but I grew to like them.  Presumably all of the Lompoc locations offer the dish, so it is worth a try in my opinion. 

In my F&C post, commenter Mick points me to this outfit:

Go to "The Fish and Chip Shop" 1218 N. Killingsworth St. www.thefishandchipshop.com and your search will be over.

I had just read about this place in Portland Monthly Magazine and I had it in mind for today, but sick kiddies kept me close to home.  So I will get there soon and report.  

The Oaks Bottom, to their great credit, has kept a few rotating taps and today they had the Russian River 'Damnation' on tap.  This belgian style ale has received a lot of attention but I found it strange and antiseptic, so I went for the Diamond Knot 'Industrial IPA' which was pretty good and yet another hugely hopped beer of the type that I keep running into (and good for post tax prep cleansing).  

The Oaks Bottom also played a steady stream of late eighties pop/rick and, perhaps depressingly, I found I knew every word to every song.  

Notes on Blogging and Fish and Chips

You may have noticed already but the next couple of weeks will be a bit light on the blogging front as I am on vacation and I am about to go to a place next week where there shall be no (gasp!) internets.  Bear with me.  I might be able to text a post or three.  

On the fish and chip front (as I know you are anxiously awaiting my latest dispatch), as a part of my vacation, I recently sampled the fare at the McMenamin's Edgefield Pub.  It was a disaster.  Overcooked rubbery fish and soggy fries.  What a disgrace to all of fishdom - to think that a poor fish gave its life for that.  Sigh.  The rest of the visit was wonderful, however, and I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of their IPA which I haven't had in years, it was really tasty.  But I must now sadly place McMenamin's on the black list for fish and chips.

On a brighter note, have now had the F&C at the New Old Lompoc's Oaks Bottom Public House on several occasions and can now say with confidence that they are consistently superb.  I have not tried them at their other locations, but I will assume that they are good unless proven otherwise.

So you want good F&C in Portland? I recommend The Fish and Chip Shop for traditional English finger style (think batter) and the New Old Lompoc empire for exceptional pub style F&C.

Eco-nomics: Partial and General Equilibrium

Economics is often taught using partial equilibrium - studying one market and assuming away any spillover effects.  Think of the classic example of the market for orange juice - teachers may (and usually do) ask about the effect on the OJ market from something like a hurricane that wipes out half of Florida's orange crop.  When you say that input costs will increase, shifting the supply curve to the NW and thus price will rise and the quantity sold will decrease you are ignoring any other effects - like perhaps that, without a crop to pick, there will be a flood of labor supply to OJ factories lowering costs for producers.  This last example is an example of general equilibrium - trying to trace the effects of some change through all effected markets.  We don't emphasize it much in undergraduate classes because it is HARD.  It is like trying to figure out global weather - there are so many interconnections, coming up with a good model is very difficult.

I mention this because this is one reason it is very hard to say what effect the push for biofuels will have on the prices of other crops and on overall welfare.  If there is increasing demand and thus price of corn, what will happen to the price of other crops in the short and long term?  Well it depends on what is being planted and where, the magnitude of the cross-price elasticity of demand for other crops - even how new fuels will effect transportation costs.  As you can see, blaming biofuels for rapid commodities price escalation (or defending them) is dangerous business.   It is also true, however, that general equilibrium effects are often not thought about very much in casual discussions of environmental economics.  

For example, I wonder what the effect would be if there was mass consumption of Priuses (Pri'i?). On the one hand this would reduce gas consumption dramatically, but it would also put pressure on the production of all the junk that goes into the batteries.  How much energy does it take to get the stuff?  How much pollution does this create?  What about waste?  I don't know the answers to these questions, but many good ideas, when considered in mass amounts, often become questionable. 

This, apparently, is true of biodiesel.  Now that many people have converted to biodiesel the supply of used cooking oil is not keeping up with demand (despite my appetite for fish and chips).  So now what? - the economic rationale has changed, does biodiesel still make sense?  I don't know.  But I do get grumpy when good ideas in isolation are not thought about in a general context - in the general equilibrium.

One final example.  My wife and my mother were talking very admiringly about the freecycle movement and the idea that one could help the world by not buying new stuff.  Hmmm...  OK, so I am an economist and not helping my rep by taking this on - but I see a few problems with this.  First, there is a market for this stuff, from people who can't afford new.  If middle class people started gobbling this stuff up, that would just either increase the demand for Wal-Mart style cheap stuff from China of further impoverish people who are already impoverished by driving the price of used stuff up beyond their means.  To put it plainly, you are not decreasing the demand for the stuff, just shifting who buys old and who buys new.  Also, why s consumption of new stuff such a bad thing?  This adds income and thus growth to the world.  If you care about poverty, this should be reason for pause.  

This did not go over well with the wife and mother.

My apologies for the slow blogging - life has been a bit crazy.

Beeronomics: Search Costs

Economists describe the cost of having to search (for a product, a low price, a mate, etc.) as, you guessed it, search costs.  The result in equilibrium is that the higher the cost of searching the less you will do.  So, for example, I was much more inclined to buy a CD, say, at whatever price I saw it for it the store I happened to be at than I am now that I can search for low prices easily on the internets.  (Yes, I know, I am a dinosaur, I still buy the occasional CD)  This leads to more intense competition, lower prices and, ironically, less of a need to search in the end because price disparities will be lower.  

It is for this reason I celebrate the release of Beer Signal, a new free iPhone app that allows you to search the current tap lists of Portland-area pubs.  I'll let Jeff of Beervana explain it in detail.  My first try, based on first hand knowledge of a neighborhood pub I patronized yesterday with an end of school year celebratory fish and chips with my son suggests it has some work to do to become very accurate (which will be helped along by users so I am acting in a self-interested way in publicizing it).  Still, it lowers search costs, enhances consumer welfare and will promote diverse and often rotating taps.

Better living through technology indeed...