While Carlisle's culinary pond is not perhaps as vast as other cities in England, one thing that is usually reliably available everywhere is the good old chippy, so it was straight to Just Eat.
Paulo's, one of several chippies available in Carlisle, was chosen.
My usual order is sausage, chips, and curry sauce, but to put this takeaway to the test we saw it fit to order fish and chips as well.
Living so close to Scotland, haggis was on the menu, deep-fried in batter, as were deep-fried Mars bars.
We ordered a massive amount of food.
In all, we ordered:
- Cod and chips (£10.25)
- Regular cheesy chips (£4.90)
- Haggis (£3.00)
- Jumbo sausage (£2.75)
- Regular sized curry sauce (£1.55)
- Two battered Mars bars (£2.80)
- One can of Diet Coke (£1.90)
- One can of Coca-Cola (£1.90)
- One portion of tartare sauce (55p)
A total of £29.60, but they threw in some onion rings for free, or was it a mistake?
Either way, certainly wasn't complaining.
The fish and chips meal was a lot of money, but it's the same with other chippies.
The price of fish and chips is like the Freddo, it's sometimes used as a marker for inflation, but it's certainly more expensive than it used to be (although this is not unique to Paolo's).
The food arrived very quickly, maybe because it was a Thursday night, but even then it was noticeably faster than other takeaways in similar circumstances.
I first tucked into my fish and chips, which I was pleased to find came in its own cardboard box so I didn't have to unwrap it and put it on my plate.
The fish (they used cod) was big enough to fill me up, with a great crispy batter - not too greasy, and the chips were equally pleasing.
The fish itself was fresh-tasting, flaky and succulent.
My partner attested the haggis was the best they've ever had, and the cheesy chips were coated in a generous amount of well-melted cheese, also delicious.
Feeling too full to continue but fueled with journalistic integrity, I soldiered on to try the sausage, which was pretty standard, exactly what I wanted.
The curry sauce tasted good, but their style contained lumps, which wasn't to my personal taste, a minor dislike.
The Mars bars, of which we could only manage to fit one bite, were very sweet, gooey, and cakey, a decadent and depraved dessert to finish this banquet off.
Overall, I highly commend Paolo's for super-fast service, while also not skimping on quality food.
You'd be a fool not to order from here.
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