Elite on the Bail, Lincoln

 

We have been wanting to visit an Elite Chippy for a while now. Our opportunity arose when one of us was in Lincoln. A relatively new Elite has opened here on Bailgate at the high part of the town. The premises have a restaurant on the Bail itself but if you want a takeaway you should follow the arrows round to the back.

The takeaway is in a good location - the castle is in view and there are plenty of places to sit nearby. The shop is very smart looking and has plenty of social distancing measures including hand sanitiser, a screen, and card payments.

The fish menu here is impressive:

Regular haddock

Large haddock

Regular cod

Large cod

Plaice

Huss (rock salmon)

Skate

Lemon sole

Lincolnshire fish cake at £1.50

or Homemade fish cake £2.25 (I wonder what the Lincolnshire version is like)

I had regular haddock, chips, mushy peas and a gherkin.

The fish was fried to order, the meal salted and vinegared and then wrapped and bagged. There was quite a lot of packaging involved but it was all biodegradable. The gherkin for example came in its own tray which was then wrapped in paper.

The customer before me was given a fork but I wasn’t. Odd. Luckily I had brought my own.

The haddock was very nice. The batter was quite dark but tasty. The flakes of fish large and fleshy. It reminded me of fish that I had eaten fried in beef dripping on the East Coast.

The chips were quite chunky and juicy. Soft rather than crisp, but again nice and tasty.

The mushy peas had some strange looking brown bits in them. I’m not sure if it was stray batter or burnt peas. They were also quite stodgy. So I only picked at about half of them. Luckily my gherkin helped me to digest the food.

Ratings out of 5:

Fish (haddock): 4

Chips: 4

Mushy peas: 2

Gherkin: a juicy 4

Shop / service: 4

Overall: 4