Friday 1 August 2014

Colmans Fish and Chips

Like the rest of the UK, the North East has been enjoying a lovely Summer.  It's ideal weather to head to the coast in the early evening to grab some dinner so recently Simon and I decided to get the Metro to South Shields and do just that.

I was excited to cross another restaurant off my list and such a lovely day made us crave fish and chips so we decided it was finally time to visit Colmans Fish Restaurant in South Shields.

Colmans is a family owned restaurant that has been serving up fish and chips since 1926 although the family first started the business with a small hut in South Shields in 1905.  They have won many local and international awards and are so well known they have their very own brown sign just down the road pointing tourists in the direction of the "Award Winning Fish & Chips".  They've been called upon to provide their food all over the world and the walls of the restaurant are adorned with the photographs of visiting celebs (and Keith Chegwin!).  So as you can imagine we were pretty excited about trying it out.

When you read so many good things about a restaurant it's pretty hard not to walk through the door with very high expectations.

The interior of the restaurant wasn't quite what I was expecting, it wasn't anything special and the water feature positioned by the door made the entrance smell pretty strongly of chlorine which was quite off-putting.  I was glad when we were shown to a table tucked round the corner away from it.

I was really impressed with the variety of dishes on the menu and that the food is all locally sourced, definitely a whole lot more than your average seaside fish and chip restaurant.  It took me a good while to decide what to order as I was so torn between traditional fish and chips and the crab cakes which sounded amazing served with a soy and ginger dipping sauce.  

In the end we both decided on the cod and chips and, being a greedy girl, I also ordered mine with some sides - a pot of baked beans along with some bread & butter.

Here's where our problems began.  Although the staff were lovely and friendly the whole restaurant felt a little chaotic.   The restaurant was fairly busy with it being 5:15 pm on a Saturday afternoon however there were plenty of spare tables so it certainly wasn't full to capacity and there was a huge amount of staff working.

It felt like the staff in the restaurant weren't utilised very well.  During our meal we were visited by about 5 different waiters and waitresses, it seemed like no one had been allocated our area which led to lots of confusion and mistakes.

Our food turned up without our drinks which was very annoying.  With it being a warm day we were gasping and didn't really want to start tucking into our meal until we had something to drink.  After a while it became obvious our drinks weren't coming so we had to remind a waitress and ask about our bread and butter which also hadn't arrived.


Much apologising followed, along with the wrong drinks and still no bread and butter.  So we had to wait for our correct drinks to appear and ask again for our bread.  I also took the opportunity to ask for some mayonnaise after my first request had led to one very stingy little sachet of sauce.

Unfortunately  I never saw my mayonnaise but after the mix up with the drinks and the bread I couldn't be bothered to remind them again as I just wanted to get on with my food.

The good news is the fish and chips were absolutely amazing and completely worth the hype.   The batter was perfectly crispy and formed the perfect shell around the flaky fish and the chips were chunky.   The portion was so generous too, and I ended up being too full to finish it which is unheard of.

I was so happy when the bread arrived as it was a stottie from a local bakery.  Since moving to the North East I've become obsessed with stotties and this one was absolutely perfect, the best stottie I've ever tasted.



The meal was pretty expensive compared to your usual fish and chips at the seaside, and whilst I didn't begrudge paying for the food itself, I felt that with all the awards the restaurant boasts the service should have been so much better.  It did leave me wondering if I'd bother going back.

Feeling absolutely stuffed we decided to go down to the seafront to walk off some of our food.  Although it was a real struggle to put one foot in front of the other I'm glad we made the effort because it was lovely to see the sea.

On our way back to the Town we were surprised when we walked past to find that Colmans were shutting their doors at 6:00 pm.  I would have thought in the Summer they'd open much later.

I'd be really interested to hear if anyone else has had similar experiences?  I feel so disappointed and am hoping  we were very unlucky and caught them on a rare bad day?   Are Colmans worth another go?
Share:

17 comments

  1. Posting fish and chips on a Friday good choice. Shame that the service was so rubbish. It is disappointing when the food is good but the rest of it let's it down, have a lovely weekend Lucy x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know!!!! I so need to get back into having fish and chip dinners on a Friday, it's such a great treat! x

      Delete
  2. I love South Shields but I've never even heard of this plaice (sea what I did there?!) I got married at the hotel on the mouth of the Tyne.
    I prefer my fish and chips on my lap, wrapped in paper sitting in the car watching the waves on a stormy night. I love the north east, so much variety, and I love your blog :-)
    www.thirtysomethingoap.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. BRILLIANT! You should be a comedian :p From what people have said it's best to get Colmans takeaway so maybe next time I'll do that x

      Delete
  3. I've just been to Harry Ramsden's and it's made me want to try out more 'gourmet' fish and chip places! That's such a shame about the service though, perhaps it was a bad night for them but hopefully they will take on board feedback and improved, because if the food is great then the service should really match it! At Harry Ramsden's I must say it was spot on, great food and great service.

    Imogen // imogenscribbles

    ReplyDelete
  4. Not my favourite fish and chip shop in the North East but those definitely look delicious! I'm a Clems girl at heart, I need them in newspaper or it's not the real deal! :D
    Katy x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooooooooooh will have to look up where Clems is! x

      Delete
  5. Ps. I love that dress you're wearing!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh no I've been craving fish and chips all day and now it's even worse! Ha! Looks delicious, even better eaten by the sea. We have one of the best F&C shops in London on our doorstep, Toff's in Muswell Hill. It's SO good.

    Caroline x
    www.cocktailsandcaroline.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I could never find a good fish and chip shop in Wimbledon so I didn't have them much in London, making up for it now I'm nearer the sea though x

      Delete
  7. i'm sorry the experience wasn't up to scratch - the disappointing feeling is a downer, but I guess you don't know until you try. on another note, what on earth is a stottie?! x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. :D A stottie is a big flat round bun, it's cooked in the bottom of the oven and it has this gorgeous bubble like texture in the middle, so good slathered in butter. You can only really get them in the North East, Greggs make amazing stotties but they only sell them in their stores in the NE. So if you're ever up this way make sure you give them a try x

      Delete
  8. Been here a tonne of times. Most reliably excellent fish and chips around. The service can be a bit haphazard, but I've never had it as bad as you did here. Shame. Of course , you can bypass any service issues by going to the take out bit and eating your fish and chips in the park. Cheaper too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's exactly what I'm going to do next time :D x

      Delete
  9. We went here a couple of weeks ago too. It's a shame about the problems you had with the service, it was fine for us when we went x

    ReplyDelete

© New Girl in Toon | All rights reserved.
Blog Layout Created by pipdig