Where in London is the best (or really good) chip butty?
 

I will be in London on Saturday for a quick day trip and I have the notion in my head that I need to find the best (or really good) chip butty in London.

So, where can a common man find a damn tasty chip butty in London? (or are the best ones up in the Northwest?)

If I can't get a decent lead on one, I'll switch to Plan B which is dim sum in Chinatown.

The first hit on Google is a Tripadvisor review for Hashtag# Fish and Chips but I am very tempted to skip it based on their stupid name.

Recommended chippies are a bit thin the ground in London, but have a peek at Poppies...

http://poppiesfishandchips.co.uk/

You're about to find out that London's chippies are not a patch on the North West. The London ones have strange green liquid and fishy tasting pies with snake like contents.

You're probably better with a sandwich at Euston. :d

I'm glad you posted, Rubicund. Can you recommend a place up in your neck of the woods?

You know, I wouldn't mind an eel pie. I'll try anything once. I have Manze's written down so I can go there should my chip butty quest fail and I don't want dim sum.

I've never encountered a chip butty in London. Nor any chippies doing deep fried Mars Bars or offering gravy for your chips. I can't remember coming across any pouring curry sauce on them either - or selling hot pork pies.

I'm also struggling to think of any chippies offering green liquor: there's a clear distinction between chippies and eel & pie shops.

What IS relatively common is fresh fish properly fried in oil rather than that disgusting tallow so widely misused in the culinarily illiterate parts of Britain. If you're addicted to having a mouth full of congealing beef fat, though, the Fryers' Delight in Theobalds Rd will indulge that bizarre aspect of Northern masochism.

FWIW, my experience is that a decent chip butty has to be made at home. Buy the chips at a chippy, douse them in salt and vinegar, then wrap well.

Once they're home, you used to get out a loaf of medium sliced Mothers' Pride, though these days any standard own-label white Chorleywood process sliced bread will have to be used instead. Spread with lactic butter (because this IS a Northern treat), and pile the soggily vinegared, and now cooling, chips between two buttered slices.

For real gastronomes: add a touch of your local bottled brown sauce. In emergencies HP will do, but no own-label will. Health nuts will use own-label brown sliced bread, though I think that's girly.

flanner, I love everything about your post. I need to buy you a pint or three.

sparky, what sort of a place are you looking for? Fine dining or chippy?

Definitely not fine dining.

I take that to mean pub food or sit in chippy then? Here's a list, just google and have a look:

Top Brink Pub Todmorden
Fighting Cocks Italian, Cliviger near Burnley
Cellar restaurant Padiham
Barley Mow, Barley Village
Assheton Arms Downham
Sparrow Hawk, Fence
Bannister's Fish & Chip restaurant- Boundary Mill, Colne

Thanks!

Where are you close to sparky when you visit? I can recommend dependent on your location.

I live in Winsford and work in Birchwood.

I knew that, (no I'm not stalking you) but I live in the Pendle area of Lancashire. When you said "your neck of the woods", I assumed you meant Pendle, because you had business or had a reason to come up here.

If you're just looking for a day out and somewhere to eat, that's a different matter. As a Mancunian though, are you looking for somewhere in Manchester?

In general, I am on the hunt for "The Best" (or at least very good) various regional foods from across the country.

An incomplete list:

chip butty
Wigan slappy
scouse
eel pie (might look for this instead of chip butty on Saturday)
pork pie
steak pie
bubble and squeak
Eccles cake
etc.

Hit submit too soon.

If I can get really good versions in the area, I'll do that.

Sorry to intrude - but can someone explain what "brown sauce" is. I have read about this in some british mysteries but don't have a clue.

At first I though it was ketchup - but that is red, not brown - and then ketchup was mentioned as a separate item.

And also what is "beans on toast". Is this regular baked beans just put on toasted bread - rather than the franks and beans often served at picnics etc in the US? Or some sort of different legume?

As for what seems to be french fries on wonder bread - is that an actual thing? Or just a joke?

The older mysteries don;t seem to have so many mentions of these foods but I am seeing more and more in mysteries from the 70s on. Are these some sort of regional specialities (like people here who put cranberry sauce on turkey sandwiches) or a modern but obscure take on older foods (like deep fried twinkies)

Brown sauce is HP sauce

Ketchup is red sauce

Beans on toast is baked beans on a slice of toast. The same baked beans you are referring to.

French fries on wonder bread is the chip butty. Well, a variation on it as the butty would be a roll with butter.

I should say brown sauce is HP sauce and other similar sauces.

if you really want try a regional "delight" head across to Middlesborough and track down a parmo