The Cod is humongous at Jimmy's Plaice. 7.11.24

 

 

 

£12.50 worth of Cod and Chips.

 

 Jimmy's Plaice. 350 Cold Harbour Lane, Brixton, London SW9 8QH.

I ate cod and chips £12.50 and mushy peas £2.00, for a total price of £14.50.

I have no shame and will admit that I bailed out of the Dynamic Vinyasa hot yoga class. Tristan the teacher is a tremendous guy and a great instructor but like a man meeting his soon-to-be-ex at a mid-price bistro (no one in their right minds does a break-up in a Michelin starred establishment), it’s me, not him. I’m too old and too slow for such vigorous exercise. That it’s done to bouncy music in a darkened room is a lot. It was fifteen minutes into the class when I realised that my mojo had fled and rather than adopt the savasana pose in a darkened room for the remaining 45 minutes, I left. This act of bad karma took place at the Hot Yoga Brixton studio. In a violent act of anti-yoga, I sauntered over to Jimmy’s Plaice and ordered a portion of fish and chips.

If you’re looking for an invigorating enervating workout, you could do worse than Hot Yoga Brixton. Everyone from the cleaning staff to the receptionists, to the teachers are cheerful and positive people. I never leave the studio without feeling lifted and refreshed. Depending on the membership package you go for, an individual class can run you from £6 to almost £30. By way of contrast, my membership at a local Pure Gym (yes, I have two gym memberships) runs me £29.99 a month. It’s open 24/7, offers exercise classes and a solid range of exercise machines. I admit to being one of those weirdoes who get up at 5am a couple of times a week to lift weights. Forgive me the segue, it’s partly how my mind works but also important to contextualize my visit to the chippy.

The crowd at the Hot Yoga Brixton are largely female, generally young, very middle-class, and mostly white. I am old brown male and very stiff. It’s a combo all right. The clientele at the Pure Gym I lift at is largely young, mainly male, and almost entirely black. The people at the studio are lovely but Pure Gym feels like home to me. There’s a down-home masculine feel to the weights room in the early morning. It’s unpretentious, the few conversations that happen are low key and respectful. People are kind with each other and if you need a spot, there’s no question that the answer to the request will be a yes. Hot Yoga Brixton and the nearby Pure Gym feel like they represent two different visions of the area.

Which brings us to Jimmy’s Plaice. You need to hang a left on exiting the studio and amble a hundred yards or so till you hit the parade of shops. Jimmy’s Plaice is the third from the left. Over the years, the composition of the shops on that shopping parade has changed. Cafes, coffeeshops and restaurants are now prominent. That said, there’s still a Morley’s Fried Chicken and a couple of off-licences, and of course, Jimmy’s. The shopfront is tired and there’s no one at the counter when I walk in. But I call out and Jimmy miraculously appears- a middle-aged man who vaguely looks southern European.

 

The eponymous Jimmy of Jimmy's Plaice.

 ‘There’s no fish’ I say as I point to the hot food counter.

‘It’s cooked to order’ he tells me.

‘Okay. Cod and chips please.’

We chat as he cooks the fish. The cod and chips I’ve ordered is priced at £12.50. I wince when I realise how much it’s going to cost me. It’s not that £12.50 is unreasonable but when I can get fish bites and chips for £7.50 at Fladda on the Camberwell New Road, well, it feels way more expensive than I would like. We talk fish prices.

‘Everything’s going up in price’ he tells me. I look at his board and I see that all the fish items cost about £9 or £10.

‘I’m going to have to raise my prices’ he tells me.'But not by much.'

Here’s where it gets interesting. He tells me that the only trade he gets is from the large housing estate across the road. No tourists drop by – it’s too far off the beaten track – and I doubt if many people from the Yoga studio patronise Jimmy’s. He has to raise the prices in order to turn a profit, but he is constrained as to how much he can raise his prices because his customers cannot afford it. People like Jimmy are caught in the middle, being pressed from both sides with his profit margins ever decreasing. This is how the old Brixton dies.

So how was the cod? Well, it was a humongous perfectly cooked piece of fish. Maybe I’m a small eater but I would have happily shared this meal with a friend and we’d both be full. The chips are thick and oily and have a golden hue.

‘Wait’ I tell him. He stops and looks at me as I sprinkle salt and vinegar on the fish and chips. He waits until I’m done and then wraps it up in paper. He offers me a choice of having the in wrapped in paper or putting it in a cardboard box.

‘Never use plastic’ he tells me. ‘Otherwise, it gets soggy, and you need to let it breathe.’

That last comment feels like a punch in the gut for me. That last detail felt like a rebuke for my mistaking the unprepossessing shop front and interior for a lack of respect for the product it was selling. When I get home, I unwrap and plate the fish and chips and enjoy them whilst watching something on YouTube. Steam rises from the cod. The succulent white flesh flakes beautifully when I apply my knife and fork. Salt pulls the flavour right out of the fish and the vinegar adds a complementary sourness to it that just feels right. No complaints about the fat chips either, they’re crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. I had picked up a container of mushy peas as another last-minute impulse buy. I asked Jimmy to warm them up in the microwave for me so I wouldn’t have to wait when I got home. They’re mushy peas, you really can’t get them wrong. It’s all washed down with a cold can of Strawberry and Basil flavoured Kombucha that I picked up at the studio (£2.50 if you like that sort of thing). I think I may have found the perfect post-yoga workout treat. Cheers’ Jimmy!