Down at Fisherman’s Catch I order the special seafood pack, flake, chips, scallops, a king prawn and several calamari rings. While I wait I watch a fascinating show taking place a ten minute mini entertainment as phone orders buzz in and the Chinese owners do their best in 3/4 English – is it Chinglish? Can’t deny them, these hard working busy bees, scooping the loose particles of frying potato from bubbling fat fryers. Exhaust fans roar over head and orders are handed round on numbered chits, spiked when completed. There’s a big board with all the options available, various types fish from Baramundi to Whiting and Trevally. They also do burgers and steak sandwhiches and I am presented with the usual conundrum of a hamburger with the lot and then a hamburger with the lot AND pine – I’ll never understand.

At home The paper wrapping the box has gone soggy with steam that has evaporated up from the delicacies below, I peel it back revealing a landscape of angular chips, and dimpled bubbles of battered prawn, clamari and fish and the prize for today the scallop. I pick it up in eager fingers, it’s still a little too hot and I juggle it into my mouth where it sears a lip. I bite through it and a world of ocean explodes inside me. A juicy river of pleasure in salty intensity washes over my tongue and mingles in my nose with the smell of the fresh chips. I corner a chip and slice into its crunchy exterior, a steamy neutral taste erupts. It’s the sort of thing I want to wolf down as quickly as possible, but by the time I’m 3/4 through I’m starting to get a little ‘over’ it, but the new seasoning of the battered prawn revivifies my interest…..