Petrou Brothers, Cambridge

You can't get more British than a dreary grey sky and a plate of fish and chips.

The thing I never understood about fish and chips is why this dish is so strongly associated with British food. There's nothing about it that strikes me as particularly British.

On a similar note (that The Fastest Food Blogger also noted recently), it strikes me as unusual that Cambridge should have at least two dedicated fish and chip shops, yet it is so difficult to buy good fresh seafood for cooking...

Anyhow thanks to a tip from LL Cool J, n∈R and I decided to head to the mall outside the Grafton to lunch at a fish and chippie called Petrou Brothers. What were we there for?

Oh yes. When LL mentioned last week that you could get a "mini" (read: maxi) fish and chip meal for around £3, this was an opportunity that could not be passed up.

Objects in photo may appear smaller than actual size.

Maxi alright, he wasn't kidding. Out comes a rather generous portion of fish and chips, slopped with a pretty damn huge ladle of mushy peas.

The fish was actually pretty well fried, with a good crunch and not at all sogged with oil. I have to say I wasn't the biggest fan of the chips - they were quite good for British fish and chip standards I think, but still there was less golden crunch and more of a hardened skin to the outside of them, needing quite a bit of salt & vinegaring. (I miss Uni Bros chips for any usyd people out there. Mmm chicken salt.) Mushy peas are mushy peas ie. tasteless green volume that counts as one of your "5-a-day".

Verdict? Pretty tasty fish, reasonable chips, um yeah peas, and a bloody good price.

Petrou Brothers
12 Burleigh St
Cambridge CB1 1DG
http://www.petroubrothersfishandchips.co.uk/

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Trinity BA Society Garden Party

Fellows' Bowling Green, Trinity College, Cambridge

Twenty-nine degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Perfect summer weather for a garden party!

Trinity College, and well Cambridge in general, is a completely unrealistic place. Our beds are made for us daily, we wear academic gowns to dinner every week by choice, 15 minutes walk is a terribly long distance, and a nice day out involves champagne and strawberries whilst punting along the river. It's a ridiculously decadent lifestyle, totally unsustainable, and yet you so easily get sucked into it's charms... I guess being a beneficiary of it all, it's hard to complain!

An assortment of cakes, cupcakes and macaroons from Tom's Cakes

The recent BA garden party is a prime example of this completely surreal lifestyle. A year ago, I would have never pictured myself sitting in a place like this, drinking Pimms and bubbly whilst enjoying a few cakes and nibbles!

A very small portion of the cheese on offer - two types of goats cheese, aged cheddar and Cambridge blue

For those who aren't familiar with the BA society, it's the graduate society at Trinity College. Run by students, they organise a bunch of social events and formals, orientation events and generally look after the welfare of graduate students.

The humongous brie. AMAZING. From the Cambridge cheese company.

Anyway, onto the food! This is a food blog after all... we had a wonderful assortment of cakes from Tom's Cakes (they have a stall in the market square on Sundays), a range of cheeses from the Cambridge cheese company including a massive massive brie, a few savoury nibbles from catering: smoked salmon and parma ham squares, asparagus rolls and cheese straws.

Everybody likes pink.

And of course, lots of drink! Sparkling white and rose, Pimms, G&T, as well as orange and apple juice, and elderflower cordial.

A stupendous amount of ice cream and strawberries.

And it wouldn't be a garden party without a trolley full of strawberries and ice cream: brown bread, pistachio and mango!

Top it off with a classy four-piece band and there you have it: a classic Cambridge experience. Totally unrealistic, yet you wouldn't want it any other way.