Food from Every Stall on Norwich Market – Week 2 and Ron’s Fish and Chips

This is the second week of our plan to eat at every food stall at Norwich market this year.

WEEK 2 : Ron’s Fish and Chips

I wasn’t saddened when we randomly drew out Ron’s fish and chips from our list so early, I’ve visited before and always been surprised and delighted with the value offered. As can be seen from the sign, it was established in 1953 and is run by the third generation of the family. I like a bit of heritage and it was also easy to see what they sell, it’s cod, chips and battered sausages.

The photo is better in my previous post about this chip stall, but this will have to do. I saw that there were just two small battered sausages left in the hot hold and so I thought in case Nathan wanted one I’d have both so he could have a freshly prepared option. I’m always selfless like that.

The service was friendly and the prices are very reasonable, it came to £2.90 for chips and two small battered sausages, which is I imagine going to be one of the cheaper prices that we pay during this culinary expedition over the next few months. And, I have to comment positively on this, they accept cards and that makes things just so much easier. They have put prices up, I think I’m right in saying, just twice in ten years and so that’s a real commitment to affordable food.

These photographs are terrible, not least as I had managed to make the camera lens greasy and so that’s my best effort of taking a photo of Nathan’s food. Note he’s gone for small fish and chips, but he’s always decadent like that but it’s useful to have middle class friends like him. Left to our devices, my friend James and I risk having a rather more louche approach to the whole matter of lunches. Ron’s has the slight disadvantage of not having its own seating area, so we hovered in a nearby row to eat the delightful offerings. Nathan would have preferred to have gone into the great outdoors area at the rear of the market, but there live trolls, pigeons and seagulls. Actually maybe not trolls, but it does feel wild and dangerous to me with these pterodactyl sized birds flapping about the area.

This much better photo, of only slightly eaten food, was taken by Nathan and I was impressed at this little culinary arrangement and suspect I might go back to Ron’s to try the fish. Keenly priced, freshly made and flaking away nicely, that’s a good piece of fish. The cost of the fish varies slightly depending on the size, but it’s usually around £2.80 to £3.20. Whether by design or not, Nathan wasn’t given a fork so he had to drop his middle class mannerisms to just treat it like a large fish finger eaten by hand. If required, salt and vinegar is provided, although sauces come at an extra cost, but that’s entirely reasonable given the low price of the food.

Moving onto the food, if I can be picky and go on about my personal taste (which I feel it’s fair to do on a blog post I’m writing) I do prefer a slightly firmer chip exterior. But, the portion size was generous for medium chips and they tasted of a decent quality and were cooked well. As for the sausage, the batter had a richness of flavour and they were evenly coated in the batter so there weren’t lots of bald spots. I do though prefer a meaty butcher’s sausage, which is actually the reason I defected to Lucy’s a while ago. There’s nothing wrong with these sausages, but they’re the processed type and they don’t have the same depth of taste. But that’s more all just a personal preference thing, there was nothing wrong with the food here and I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I was at all disappointed.

All told, this feels like a really professionally run unit, they’re friendly, the service is prompt and there’s a consistency so that customers know what they’ll get. They’re made an effort to keep prices low, without cutting back elsewhere, and this feels like one of the stalls that is the backbone of Norwich market. Definitely recommended.