Australia, your tempura fish is ready

Australian fast food chain Red Rooster, not content with purveying solely chicken-related products, has started selling fish and chips.

I get the impression it's a limited-time-only thing designed to cash in on those twice-a-year Aussie Christian devotees who refuse to eat cow parts on Good Friday. Good luck to them I guess, although I don't see the harm into chowing down into a bacon double cheeseburger be it Good Friday, Pancake Tuesday or Queen's Birthday Monday. Blasphemy-wise, that is, of course there is the harm done by the raising of one's LDL cholesterol levels.

But something doesn't seem right about a national franchise chain selling fish and chips. Fish and chip shops are meant to be run by a fifty-something year old bloke of European descent and his five kids, not a bunch of high school kids. If I want the full fish-and-chip shop experience I expect to a faded Chiko roll poster from 1976 on the wall beside a Coca-Cola promotional poster from 1987. And who could forget the old video game machine in the corner to play while your deep fried grease-filled treats were cooking up? It was usually Street Fighter II, and I'd play as the uber-hot Chinese chick Chun Li.

But I digress. The Red Rooster ad for new fish-and-chip product line mentions delicious tempura-coated fish, which sparked my attention. For those unaware, tempura is a Japanese dish consisting of lightly battered prawns, vegetables and other delicious oddities. If I can somehow do enough exercise to compensate, I may have to try this new fast food offering despite its apparent wrong-ness. Review to come should I decide to.

Credit where it's due, this post was inspired by the musings of Geelong-based blogger Daniel85 as to the irrelevance of Red Rooster.