West Coast Fish N Chips

I ate here years ago, and had a rather average experience and didn't post a review.  Went back today and had very nice experience.  The facility is clean, smells nice, and the staff was very friendly.

I ordered the 2 piece fish + 4 prawns, which comes with 1 side.  For my side, I went with the fried okra.  I had a side order of pickle fries.  After an appropriate time for a chip shop, my food came out and I was pretty sure I may have ordered a bit much.  Everything tasted great - fish & prawns had a nice breading on them, not too thick, and it didn't pull away when you started to eat it either.  The fish fillets were a good size, too.  The breading on the okra was a little different, and it was also well prepared. Not super greasy, which sometimes fried okra can be.  I think my favorite part of the meal was the pickle fries.  I've had pickle chips before, and enjoyed them, so I figured this would be about the same.  These were pickle spears that were sliced down a bit to fry size.  They weren't as thin as like a shoestring fry, with a little more thickness.  The breading was similar to the fish.  Tasted great.  Still had some snap to them, and weren't all floppy like a sliced pickle can be.

My only drawback to the meal was the plastic fork.  If I was getting my order to go, fine, give me a plastic fork because I may need it, or I may have a better fork where I'm headed.  But if I'm eating there, give me a real fork.  Really, this fork struggled to cut the breaded fish - that's good on the fish, bad on the fork.

Overall, very good experience.  I'm stuffed from my meals, and I'm writing this like 2 hours later.  I'll definitely go back.

trader joe's south african style chips

i was a fresh & easy shopper. i liked quite a few of the products, they had some great prices on cheese & such, and they were a great option to grab stuff in addition to the place i buy most groceries.  but, they spread themselves to thin, and tesco sold off the franchise. my closest location closed, but there were still some open. then, almost all the locations in the valley closed.

so, i've begun to shop a little at trader joe's. the other day i saw these:

i was like, "what makes south african style chips?" and "i wonder what my family in south africa would think of these?"  so i bought them.  today, i opened them up with lunch.  they were pretty good, too.  here's how they're described:

so, theyr'e barbecue flavored then?  yeah.

lunch review - todd's cookhouse bar-b-que

i was out & about, looking for lunch in all the wrong places. and then it hit me that a new bbq place had opened in clovis. i loves the bbq so i drove over a few streets to get some.

like many local bbq places, they have a order at the counter system, with the menu on some large boards & hand held menus - worked fine, and they had enough counter help to keep it moving along. their staff was friendly and it took about 10 minutes after ordering to get my food.

i ordered the 2 item combo - brisket & sausage. it comes with 2 sides + bread. with a soda & tax it was just over $18. not terrible price, but a little more than some other local places.

the brisket was very tender, and that made me quite happy. it had a good flavor.  but what really did stand out to me was the tenderness - a lot of places fail at this. i could easily cut it with my plastic cutlery.

the sausage had a nice casing, and still had a good snap to it when i bit down. now, i have to admit that the sausage also confused me a bit. yes, it is clearly labelled as sausage, but in my head i figured it would still be a hot link or something spicy. nope, just a sausage. tasted good, but nothing special.

onto some other details: sauce - they have their own sauce, i think they call it's todd's memphis sauce or something like that. it's a sweet sauce, that has a slight kick to it. good, and they put a little on the meat itself and give you some on the side. i'm pretty sure that all of their meats are cooked without it, or with very little. i'm fine with it that idea, because a lot of times bbq places will hide their meat in too much sauce.  but what really stood out to me was what was missing from both the brisket & the sausage - any smokiness. now, i don't need or want to be overwhelmed by fake smoke flavoring, or for it to taste like i'm eating a campfire, but really, there was nothing about these meats to tell me that this meat was actually barbecued. and i also didn't see any smokers or grills outside (i could've missed it, or they could prep off site).  for example, the brisket, which was super tender, really lacked any sense it being barbecued, any smell or taste of being slow cooked on any sort of wood.

final bits - the sides. i had the hush puppies & the onion rings. both were good, and complemented the meal well enough. they had several others, and these sides probably are a little better suited to some of their other meals, but i liked them.

give it like 3/5 stars

• 1414 Clovis Ave
  Clovis, CA 93612