The Fish Supper

Superb fish and chips in Mirdif's Arabian Center 1 Reviews

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It’s rare that Time Out bothers to review anything in a food court. After visiting Fish Supper, it’s a policy I’m starting to rethink. It is a strange and wonderful entity: a food stall not linked to any major chain making everything, including the tartar sauce and pickled eggs, from scratch, and tucked away in a deserted food court at Arabian Center when really it should be stationed on a busy beachfront avenue. You don’t visit expecting some of the best fish and chips in the emirate. Yet those living outside Mirdif that bother to make the trek will find just that.

As any British expat will tell you, there are so many nuances to this seemingly straightforward dish. The batter should be light and crisp with a pale yellow hue, and the fish underneath plump and moist. The chips should be of medium thickness, with a golden crisp exterior and a fluffy interior. Mushy peas should be, well, mushy, but vibrantly green, and should embody the essence of the pea (too often, this accoutrement is served up as a pale, greyish, flavourless sludge). The Fish Supper had the fried fish and mushy peas nailed. The chips were delicious, though not quite what you might expect to find in an English chip shop; they were a skin-on affair, and though there were a few crinkly ones in the batch, as a whole they could have used a degree more crispness to truly mimic what you’d find in Blighty. But honestly, we weren’t complaining, because the batch we got was still good, and the homemade tartar sauce – a tangy concoction made with whole mustard seed – was an excellent dip.

My date recounted her childhood eating fish finger sandwiches, and in an attempt to relive it, ordered a fish bap. As she sank her teeth into it, she let out a deep sigh.

‘Even better than I remembered,’ she cooed. Unlike the sandwiches of her memory, this one filled the bun and was perfectly flaky. In between bites, the two of us took mouthfuls of Irish colcannon, buttery mashed potatoes mixed with onions and leeks. As the little stall doesn’t offer puddings, we ate it instead of dessert.

We were full, painfully so, and saddened by the fact that there was so much left over from our order. Every now and then, one or the other of us would take what we vowed was ‘one last bite’ (it never was). Finally, when we could take no more, we left, rueing the unfinished remains. We contemplated returning one day, then saw that The Fish Supper delivers. Does it get any better?

The bill (for two)
1x Fish and chips combo Dhs43
1x Fish bap with chips Dhs23
1x Colcannon Dhs18
Total Dhs84

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