Battered chicken and chips, stir fried with garlic, ginger and Chinese spices and served in a paper bag, the spice bag looks humble – but is utterly delicious.
At the city centre restaurant I visited, it was crammed with locals, particularly students, and a flotilla of delivery app drivers outside picking up the Irish staple.
It’s a culinary movement which hasn’t yet taken root in the UK.
But to mark St Patrick’s Day on the 17th, Burger and Lobster in Brighton has given the spice bag a signature twist, replacing chicken with battered prawns and half a fried lobster.
So when I was invited along to try the limited edition dish, who was I to resist?
To start, my dining companion and I ordered a cocktail each.
I went for the Southern Spice, the restaurant’s take on a spicy margarita, while my pal got herself a Spiced Solstice: spiced cranberry and clementine, Aperol, prosecco, lemon, soda,
mandarin and cloves.
We paired this with a signature starter here, the croquettes. One each of the Wagyu beef and the lobster, both laced with cheese and paired with a delicious mayo, was enough to whet our appetites for the main event.
True to the name, its presentation was a lot of fun; tipping out the brown paper bag’s contents onto a plate, I did question whether I had bitten off more than I could chew, quite literally.
In fact, our fantastic host Lucy informed us that plenty of people had shared one bag between two; not bad for £12.50 each.
I’ll put it down to the cocktails (I had moved onto a warming fig-based concoction by now) but I did initially mistake part of a lobster claw for a deep-fried prawn, with my teeth luckily coming off unscathed.
But after that minor mishap, there was no stopping me as I dunked and crunched my way through the bag’s contents.
Served alongside the bag was a duo of dips: Burger and Lobster’s house lemon butter sauce and a rich curry sauce, perfect for pouring over the chips.
The seafood was moist and melting, while the chips were golden and crunchy; a delicious addition were sticky-sweet caramelised onions which coated the whole lot in tandem with the spices.
Being the greedy person I am, I managed to demolish the whole £25 portion to myself, albeit bursting at the seams by this stage.
Although this didn’t stop me from hastily saying yes when my friend confessed she’d been defeated by the colossal portion and asked if I wanted her leftovers.
Boxed up and ready to go, we just had time for a digestif before getting the train home – an espresso martini and a more indulgent cousin laced, fittingly, with Irish cream.
All in all, a winning dish and one to sample while it’s still on the menu.
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