All is Rosey! Brit opens unit in San Antonio

All is Rosey!

Brit opens unit in San Antonio

By Mike Sutter San Antonio Express News At the San Antonio food truck Rosey’s Fish and Chips, the menu is simple: just beer-battered swai and hand-cut russet potatoes.

Before Rose started Rosey’s Fish and Chips last year, he was a musician. And before that, an Englishman, born and bred. He’s still both of things, but now he’s also the guy doing one thing and doing it well from a trailer the size of an airport tollbooth: frying fish and chips in the tradition he grew up with back home in Milton Keynes, a city 50 miles north of London.

Rose left England after college, then travelled to South America and wound up in Argentina, where he met his wife, a San Antonian. They settled back in San Antonio 20 years ago, and he’s been hunting for good fish and chips ever since.

“My frustration in Texas was that I couldn’t get anything vaguely close to what I like,” he said. “It’s something that’s being done all over the place, but not very well.”

With his own quest in mind, Rose bought a fryer and began experimenting in his garage, eventually doing fish-andchips pop-ups at The Dakota East Side Ice House before chef Tim McDiarmid invited him to cameo at her Southtown restaurant.

Rosey’s Fish and Chips is a San Antonio food truck specializing in British-style fried fish and hand-cut french fries.

Rose will be the first to tell you, “I’m not a cook; I’m a musician.” We won’t be the first to tell him that he can be both. And he’s making the best fish and chips I’ve run across in my my own private moments of Melville in San Antonio.

Best dish: Fish and chips is the only thing Rosey’s sells, one big crunchy fillet of swai and a double handful of crispy french fries for $15.

The fish is lacquered like an antique bombe chest, with smooth mahogany curves and gnarled curlicues of batter along the edges. The beer batter employs Lone Star or whatever beer’s on hand where Rose is cooking on any given night, like Real Ale at The Dooryard beer bar or a housemade brew at Second Pitch Beer Co.

Rose fries everything in peanut oil for extra flavour. The batter’s feather light but super strong, sturdy enough to cradle the fish and delicate enough to absorb and amplify the malt vinegar Rose splashes on just before serving. The fish itself isn’t fancy by any means, but its neutral taste and light alabaster flake are just the right contrast to the airy crackle of its fried shell.

For the chips, Rose hand-cuts russet potatoes in finger-size blocks and fries them twice for a hard-thump crunch on the outside and starchy fluff on the inside.

Down the road, Rose envisions Rosey’s trailers in cities all over the place, two-wheeled ambassadors for one of England’s finest exports.