Deep Sea Restaurant
Food in Scotland
Deep Sea Restaurant
81 Nethergate
Dundee
Mon –Sat 11.30am-6.40pm
Traditionally Fridays are for fish. However, this is not why I find myself in a queue in one of Dundee’s finer chippers on a Friday night.(I shall not bore you with details but the words boyfriend, working late and again have resulted in my finding sustenance that is both quick and tasty and preferably fat-sodden).
So here I am standing in a queue at Dundee’s Deep Sea Restaurant (note not chip shop), which has been serving loyal patrons its fishy fare for near on 61 years. In fact, so well known is the Deep Sea that it is practically an institution on the Dundee chipper front.
Perhaps this is due to the The Deep Sea offering both the long-forgotten sit-in fish tea experience complete with bread and butter and steaming pots of tea, brought to you by pinny-clad waitresses, as well as the quick and convenient takeaway. Or perhaps it’s because the deep-fried delights are guaranteed to fill even the most ravenous of appetites.
Whatever the answer, it is a difficult decision choosing whether to sit-in or take away. However, on waying up the pros and cons I decide that takeaway is probably the safest bet. Safe since the only spare seat available is one next to a gentleman and since men are not high on my list of favourite things, I decide it is safer for him if I don’t join him, for fear of any reprisals over the tomato sauce. He would, of course, lose.
So I join the queue of takeaway – ers, some who are fuelling-up before hitting the town, others who are re-fuelling as their dinner is now in the dog. Looking up at the menu above the counter the choice is varied. Long gone are the "chippers" who only sell fish suppers, now you can have sausages - smoked, unsmoked, battered and unbattered, steak pie, mock chop and pizza, as well as finer delicacies of the aquarium world including scampi and lemon sole.
As I scan the warm cabinet I am momentarily indecisive. What will it be? A fish supper or something more exotic. I settle on the old favourite fish supper and a carton of mushy peas, for good measure.
The fish is placed on top of the bed of chips which are nowadays cooked in vegetable oil as a concession to healthy living. (Where are the days of lard I ask?). They are thick, fat and delicious while the fish is golden and crispy, if slightly on the small side. But its quality we are given here. Both are tightly double-wrapped to keep the warm deliciousness intact until I get home.
As I grab my package the heat of the supper warms my hands, while the waft of salt and vinegar steams through the packaging. I am ravenous. And I’m suddenly glad I’ve no boyfriend in tow. This is much too scrumptious to share!
~ Lynsey Stewart