Pies

It wasn’t all beer and breakfasts in Folkestone. There were pies, too.

I so like a good pie. Minced beef and onion, or meat and potato, if they have it, are my preferences. Steak and kidney is OK. As is chicken and mushroom. And cheese and onion. Come to think of it, I like all pies.

Folkestone is lucky enough to have a pretty good chippie in the town centre. Pausing only for a quick drink in my room after checking into our hotel, we set off on the not very long walk to Papa's Fish Restaurant. A proper chippie. Not a kebab shop pretending to be one.

Mikey, being a tight git, doesn’t want to pay the extra to eat in the restaurant at the back.

“I can’t eat a pie standing up. I’m old.”

“They’ve a couple of tables at the front. We can eat there. They give you plastic cutlery.”
 

 What a classy experience it was. We both went for pies. Mince beef and onion, obviously, for me. With mushy peas. Not sure what sort of pie Mikey chose. I think the same as me. Dead good chips, chunky and brown. Yummy soaked in vinegar. And I mean soaked. The pie was on the dry side. A dousing in mushy peas sorted that out.

You can’t really linger at a tiny table in the shop. Nosh noshed down, it was pub time.

“East Kent Arms?”

“Can do, Mikey. But what about one in Chambers? It is on the way.”

“OK.”

Chambers is a cask beer sort of place. I usually manage to strongarm Mikey into a couple of visits per trip.

We were sitting in Spoons the next day, wondering what we wanted for our tea. I didn’t really fancy anything on the menu.

“What about the chippie?”

“That could work, Ron.”

And so we walked back up the hill to Papa’s. I persuaded Mikey to splash out and have a proper sit down. In the restaurant. He’d only stump up for a pie, though.

“It’s too much for the fish, man.”

Fair enough. Pie was my intention, anyway. Though it’s licensed, we forego drinks. “Too expensive” Mikey reckons. Nothing I particularly want to drink. I’m happy to give it a miss.

 The chips were a tad paler than the day before. Still with a decent enough colour. The pie exactly like yesterday: in need of mushy peas or gravy. Despite Mikey insisting that the pies weren’t microwaved, as they had been the day before.

Where did we go after that? Harveys, I think. I was too full of pie and peas to care by then.



Papa's Fish Restaurant and Takeaway
110 Sandgate Rd,
Folkestone
CT20 2BW.
https://www.papasfolkestone.co.uk/