A Spot of Fried Bliss in a Flea Market

One mission my sibling had while we were up visiting them in London, Ontario, was to try and take me to every used video game store they knew of in the area. I enjoy collecting games from just about every era of video gaming, and there aren’t many good game stores close to me (since I live in the middle of nowhere right now). Since they have a ton of resale shops near them, an outing to every one of their shops was planned. This included a stop off to check a flea market shop, since they knew sometimes that store had interesting items up for sale.

This isn’t really germane to the topic at hand, but I will note that I tend to avoid buying video games from flea market stalls. While you can sometimes find a seller who drops a bunch of stuff off on a table without any clue what any of it is worth, and is willing to let collectors wander away with good deals, more often than not flea market game sellers jack prices and try to extort their buyers. I found the prices at the stall in this particular flea market to be pretty high (certainly in comparison to items for sale at the other shops we’d already visited), so I didn’t spend much money here.

But the game shop was only one reason we went to the flea market. The more important task for that visit was to hit a restaurant built into the flea market, Cracklins Best Fish & Chips, which my sibling said was worth the trip all on its own. The stall is actually an award winning food joint, as voted by the local community, having won multiple awards for their Fish and Chips, seafood, and fries. So even though I probably wouldn’t normally eat out of a place at a flea market, I agreed to sample the wares of the establishment to see what all the fuss was about.

We got a lot of food at Cracklins so we could sample all the flavors they had on offer. Normally I’d say, “we started with this item, and then expanded out the meal with this and this…” except we ordered everything at once, and it all came at once, so we’ll just go over everything in the order, and we have to start with the fish and chips. It was two big tenders of white fish, deep fried and served piping hot on a bed of fries, with a lemon to squeeze and a side of tarter sauce, and, yeah, it was really good.

The crust was lovely, not too thick but with a great crunch to it. The crust was surprisingly not as greasy as I expected (if you’ve ever had normal fish and chips from any place that makes it in America, you know that feeling of grease all over your hands and mouth), so it didn’t feel as heavy as it could have. The fish was moist and lovely, and it all tasted great. I honestly love getting fish any time I’m up in London as it always seems like their fish is fresher than whatever I can get in my local area. This fish held up to that opinion, and it was very tasty.

The one thing I would comment is that the dish could have used a little more salt on the fish itself. The fries were properly salty, and they were really good (as homestyle fries should be), so if you were shoving fish and chips into your mouth at the same time then you got plenty of salt. But on its own, the fish maybe could have used a little more salt for flavor. It was nice with the lemon, and the tartar sauce was light and sweet so that also was good to add flavor, but since they could be eaten on their own I would have liked just a little more flavor on the tenders themselves. But that’s a really minor quibble for what was an excellent serving of fish and chips.

Next up, as I was with Canadians, they ordered poutine. Since this place won awards for their fries, this seemed fair. The poutine was basic but very good, featuring the same homestyle fries topped with cheese curds and light brown gravy. It’s basically the standard, basic poutine you’d expect to get anywhere. Nothing overly fancy about it (but then there really wasn’t anything overly fancy about any of the food here), but if you were looking for the exact kind of poutine you imagine from Canada, this was it, right down to the gravy being maybe a little too salty for my tastes, which is exactly how poutine gravy is supposed to be. I didn’t necessarily love it as much as other items we got, but it was exactly what it said on the tin.

Better were the fried shrimp, which were simple and delicious. Famed for their seafood, Cracklins knew how to deliver good shrimp, which were a solid size, nice and fresh, and very tasty. The coating on them was crunchy but not too thick, and it had a good, salty flavor to it. Paired with light and tangy cocktail sauce (which could have used more horseradish for me, but was enjoyed by the Canadians), these were exactly what I expected and I enjoyed them a lot. I would absolutely get these again.

Although not listed on their standard menu, the stall was offering "Fiesta Poppers" (jalapeno poppers, by any other name). Cheese and hot peppers, put into a little packet of fryables and cooked up hot. They were pretty good, if not especially spicy. As I’ve noted before, I don’t think Canadians normally do spice the way Americans do (with the exception of the Hot Sauce Festival I went to that one time) so this isn’t especially surprising. Still, I would have liked these little fried hot peppers to be spicier. They were flavorful, primarily from the salt of the breading and the bite of the cheese, and the ranch served on the side was nice and tasty, but on the whole they could have used a bit more oomph to them.

And finally I grabbed a smash burger. Yes, I know I probably didn’t need the burger on top of everything else we ordered, but this was supposed to feed three people, so I figured a little extra didn’t hurt. As it turned out the burger was a good call because it was delicious. It was a very basic burger, in fairness. I got mine with a slice of cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and mustard on it and while this wasn’t a gourmet burger, it was exactly what I wanted from it. Served on a basic bun, with the burger cooked until it was nice and crunchy on the edges, this was a quintessential food stall burger. Nothing special, nothing extra, but perfectly made for a simple taste. Like the shrimp it was exactly what I wanted and it did it really well.

This was, overall, a fantastic meal. The food was solid but good, and everything was cooked really well. It’s not the kind of meal that anyone is going to rave about. Cracklins isn’t one of those places that’s going to win a Michelin star. But for solid, fast food-style food, it’s hard to think of a place that does all of these items better. It’s a surprisingly wide and deep menu (and we didn’t even grab any of the breakfast items on offer), and I didn’t really have a complaint about anything we got. It was just good.

Oh, and I did end up getting a bunch of games from some other places. A few rarities I’d been looking for, while fleshing out more of my Final Fantasy collection. So in all regards, food and games, this was a successful outing.