Consider The Sauce loves the new school of flash fish and chip places.
But what do we want from them?
We want a nice, bright, clean setting.
Serenity Blu
- Address: Shop 4/29-35 Lake Street, Caroline Springs
- Phone: 8390 1700
We expect to eat in-house.
We want cooks/chefs who look like they know what they are on about – if they’re dressed smartly, so much the better.
We like seeing a nice line-up of at least a couple of good salads.
We most definitely expect to use real cutlery to eat food that is on real plates (or, in the case of Serenity Blu, on real boards).
We want to see a good range of seafood available, both grilled and fried.
Most of all, we’ve come to expect to be able to get fish, chips and salad, well presented, for under $20 – that is, at least $10 less than the same meal would cost in a restaurant proper, or pub.
Serenity Blu, a new operation in Caroline Springs, housed in what was formerly Ocean’s D’Lish, scores well on all those counts.
Though we’re equally happy to see they are enough grounded in “chish and fips” tradition to offer potato cakes and chips with gravy!
And there are burgers, too … though we’re here for the fish.
My mid-week lunch companion is Conan of the Yo India Food Truck, a Caroline Springs local.
As we talk shop and other matters of mutual interest, we enjoy a very nice lunch.
Conan chooses the grilled salmon with chips and salad ($17.50). The fish is well cooked, but still very good.
My flathead fillet with chips and salad ($16.50) is every bit as fine.
The fish is well battered and well cooked, and of a generous size.
In both our cases, the chips are good … but fall short of great.
My coleslaw – the serve is smaller, by my choice, than would’ve normally been provided – is fresh and lovely.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is Conan’s quinoa/melon/grape salad.
Normally, I’d be suspicious of anything so redolent of hipster wellness, but this really does taste wonderful.
Kenny Weir is the founder of Consider the Sauce, the definitive guide to eating in Melbourne’s western suburbs –
www.considerthesauce.net
