I am, I sometimes admit, something of a poseur vegetarian.  For the past few years, I’ve dabbled in the occasional non-Kosher bottom feeders and,  on the even rarer occasion, an honest-to-God fish.  I feel bad about the fish, though.  I dwell on them once I’ve eaten them.  So I only do so a couple of times a year.

One of those times was a few weeks ago at The Atlantic Chip Shop, the purveyor of the best fish and chips, deep-fried chocolate bars, and Carlsberg on tap in Brooklyn.  Shannon was out of town and my buddy Rachel was in, and Rachel, having become something of an informal (but forceful) advocate of all things meaty over the past decade or so, jumped at the chance to go.  She always jumps at the opportunity to witness someone eating meat.   Have you noticed, vegetarians, how excited some folks get if they suspect you might eat some flesh?  They act like it’s Christmas morning.  It’s cute.

The Chip Shop in fact offers some choice tasty veggie options, including a mushroom mac and cheese and a Welsh rarebit, but the fish is the most captivating opportunity.  It’s divided between three pesca-social classes—Cod, Haddock, and Plaice—and you can choose between them while sitting beneath a few Sex Pistols posters hanging on the wall, which John Lydon probably would appreciate.

Rae and I went for the Working and the Middle Classes, sharing the Cod and the Haddock, each approximately the size of a wooden plant and each served on a mountain of chips that I enjoyed drowning in vinegar and salt. According to Rachel, the Haddock was cleaner tasting and lighter.  It tasted more buttery than the Cod to me, and I generally have a hard time using any comparative form of “light” when referring to anything beer-batter deep fried.  I could definitely taste more of the sea in the Cod, though, confirming that the fishes in the middle achieve at least some of their identify in comparison to those on the bottom.

Both dishes were superb: the batter had a nice tang to it and the fish was moist and flaky.  The individual taste of each was apparent, was allowed room to express itself on its own, and still came together as a whole on the fork.

And of course the chips, well, the chips are a bit like a drug.  They make you feel so good, so you keep eating them even though you know you’re going to regret going overboard the minute you put the last one in your mouth.  Which is what happened to me.  Topping them off with a fried Reeces Cup or Twix, well, that would have felt like a cry for help and rehab.