A Fish & Chips Picnic Kinda Day...

Holy hell in a hand basket! The weather here in Wales has been IN-FREEEEAKING-CREDIBLE this past week. 70ish degrees and not a cloud in sight. Absolutely gorgeous and so totally NOT the weather one might expect in the UK in March. Holy shit. Seriously awesome. Needless to say we've pretty much spent every day going to various beaches. I LOVE MY LIFE. Having grown up on the east coast, I have always been in love with the sea. The only thing I hated about living in Oklahoma for the past ten years of my life was the lack of ocean. It is so so so so amazing to be living near the water again. I love that there's a marina within walking distance of our house and I will NEVER get sick of cresting a hill and seeing the ocean spread out before me. It's so magical.

Newgale Beach, Pembrokeshire

 So anyway. Today we woke up nice and early and decided to spend the day at the beach...again. We packed up the dog and a few bottles of water and hit the road. Since Dylan and I were both super hungry we stopped at our ''go to'' fish & chips establishment. It's called Something's Cooking and it's my absolute favorite ''chippy''. It's both a takeaway as well as a sit down restaurant - go in one side for takeway, the other side for sitting down. It is a bit pricey for what it is but it's so nice and the portions are HUGE which is always a plus for this fat kid. The last time I was there I ordered a starter of fried squid - not rings of calamari but giant strips of incredibly tender squid with a light bread crumb crust - SERIOUSLY tasty and then of course my  fish and chips. I wish I could just get a TON of fish and skip the chips. I'm not a big chip fan. Moral of the story, if you're ever in the area - go to Something's Cooking. It's FANTASTIC.

Chunks, Chips, Curry Sauce, Husband Hand

So we decided to get a takeaway and they had ''cod chunks'' on special. We ordered two portions of ''chunks and chips'' (that sounds so gross), one portion of curry sauce and one portion of garlic mayo. Curry sauce for me, mayo for Dylan. It all came up to £10 which I think is a really good deal. I'd never had ''cod chunks'' before, although I have seen them on the menu at Something's Cooking every time we've been. Let me say, I was really surprised at how good they were. I thought they'd be less-than-stellar reconstituted cod bits (think fish fingers) but they weren't! They were big pieces of incredibly delicious cod fillets. They're obviously just the bits that can't be sold as actual fillets.

Mmm...flaky, moist and delicious...

The fish was absolutely divine and I do believe from here on out I will exclusively order the cod chunks because they are JUST as delicious as the filet and about 40% cheaper. Huzzah!

Can we talk about chip shop curry sauce real quick? I don't know what it is. It looks super unappetizing and it tastes like sweet chicken bouillon with just a hint of curry powder but...I'm SO addicted to it. I love it. I hated it the first time I tried it but then I tried it again and I now must have it whenever I have fish and chips. If anyone can shed some light on it and tell me what it is, exactly, that'd be awesome.

Sophie jumps up and is all ''Heyyyyy, can I get some of that chippy goodness?'' No.

After our little pic-a-nic, we went to Newport Sands beach. We played fetch with Sophie for hours, traipsed through rock pools, swam in the sea and generally just enjoyed yet another incredibly glorious day. Sophie (who is just under 9 months old) swam for the first time and she was so awesome. Not scared at all! If I was an itty bitty Cocker Spaniel, I'd be terrified of waves crashing over me but she totally loved it.

We are going back tomorrow because we stumbled across something mighty interesting today which for the time being shall remain a secret. I am going to do a bit of research and perhaps my next blog entry will be about what it was we stumbled upon!

Stay tuned!