• 4
• Great option - but couple of drawbacks

I was in town for three days with my mum. We went here the night before we left. Being in the heart of Newtown, the place was buzzing with cars and people, even though it was a Wednesday night. There were only 2-4 people there when we walked in, but it took quite a while before Bliss got to taking our order. There were two women running the show: one that sounded like a local (Australian), the other Scottish (India - we overheard her name in discussion with a later customer). The Scottish connection explains the deep fried chocolate bars - something that seems to have originated in Scotland. The local sounding woman took my order - she was friendly and helpful. She tried to tempt me with the recent innovation of deep fried coke, and while that sounded fascinating, i wasn't in the mood to try it. We got a large chips, a 'fish' basket and a pineapple fritter. There were plenty of chips and they tasted nice. The pineapple fritter was also nice, with a super crunchy batter - probably the crunchiest i've ever had. The 'fish' basket was a loser, though. When i was ordering, i asked about the fish, and was told that the 'standard fish' is large pieces - like you'd get in a chip shop - and was flaky like real fish (peace be upon them). I mentioned small pieces, though, and the fish basket came up, so i thought i'd try it. Turns out the 'fish' in the 'fish' basket is completely different to the regular 'fish' pieces you'd get. Apart from being in smaller pieces, the texture was more rubbery, similar to what passes for vegan 'calimari' (i can't recall ever trying the real thing, so don't know what it's like). The batter was very good, crisp and crunchy, but the 'fish' was awful. My mother agreed. She liked the batter enough, though, to pull some of it off and eat it separately. While we ate all the other food, we left most of the 'fish' basket. I have a feeling that the regular 'fish' would have been good, based on how it was described to me, but even so, i have trouble understanding what kind of fish the 'fish' basket was based on - gummy fish (is there such a thing)? Overall, though, despite this downer, a good place to have around.