Mr Chips Diner — Restaurant in Northern Ireland

OK “chippy.” There are two restaurants with very similar names under the same management, about 30 m from each other. This was the diner, further north than the other, and it is the one that features both takeout and eat in, and uses vegetable oil, whereas the other uses the more traditional lard. When I walked in, a woman was pushing her food back across the counter demanding a refund, claiming that the food was inedible. She prevailed. I ordered takeaway at the counter anyway and I am pleased that I had a different experience. I ordered onion rings, fried battered cod, and well done “chips“(also called French fries), and this served 2 adults, with food left over (portions are large). They do not offer tartar sauce, but do offer a bewildering variety of condiments to purchase. I chose garlic mayonnaise. Ketchup was not listed, but I found that whilst waiting for the food I was able to enter the seating area of the restaurant and fill two little plastic cups with ketchup. The food had an odd smell, a curious detail, because it tasted fine. I did not ask which “vegetable” was the source of the oil, but I hoped it was not cotton. The well done chips were not in fact well done. Other reviewers describe the portions as small, which baffles me. They were rather large (the portions, not the other reviewers). For a restaurant of this type, the menu is extraordinarily diverse. If you are from Glasgow you might not have any trouble understanding the local accent,...

Worst chippy in the world.

If I was able to rate this place between 1 and 10,000 I would still struggle to justify scoring it a 1.

There are 2 main areas for concern.

First there is the staff and the atmosphere of the place. There were 5 young ladies working behind the counter, to say they were miserable is greatly under stating their demeanor. Doing anything seemed to be an almost impossible chore for them all. This gave the place a very uncomfortable and depressing feeling.

Secondly there is the "food", if you could call it that. I only ordered chips, big mistake. Imagine this, chips cooked in oil that was not hot enough. So what I got was pale coloured mushy chips on the outside that were raw in the middle. That was bad enough, but they were saturated in oil and the oil smelled and tasted of rotten fish. I tried 1, quickly spat it out and tossed the rest in the nearest bin. I seriously doubt that the oil used has been changed in months.

I decided it was better to go hungry rather than risk food poisoning.

I would have gone back to complain, but I couldn't stand the thought of going back into that depressing environment.

This place is to be avoided unless you enjoy eating rotten fish flavoured oil and...

In short, it's a bit grim. I ordered a hot dog, and my wife ordered a battered sausage and chips, with curry sauce. The sausages were essentially the same, as I had hoped for an authentic hot dog in my order, seeing as this place is attempting to give off an American Diner vibe, which is abundantly clear from their lack lustre attempts of adorning the place with Americana.

To be fair, the food wasn't too bad, even though our server brought it over from the fryer to where we were sitting with his trouser fly down, which he must of notice me noticing, because as soon as his hands was free he zipped himself up.

We sat at the front window, nearest the street, and watched as the locals scratched away at their lottery cards, interrupting the one selling point of this venue, the big window at the far end that looks out to the sea, breath taking, truly a feature window.

Which was then interrupted again, by a staff member with all the vigor of a Roomba vacuum cleaner on 1% battery life, in desperate need of a charging station as she swept the floors before us.

My wife would consider herself a bit of a "chip shop curry fan", and she enjoyed her meal, as did I, but by heck it's a...