Lent is here, and of all things to be at the start of Lent, my husbands 40th birthday. Wound up eating at Groove Train, my husband had fish n' chips and I had salt & pepper calamari. When looking at a supermarket catalogue (circular), Coles has a two page display that says fish for Lent, something I don't remember seeing in NY. There is a company here called John West, and they are the Chicken of the Sea, BumbleBee or Starkist of Australia. John West does canned, and frozen seafood. I remember buying BumbleBee flavoured tuna. I had two favourites, lemon pepper & spicy chilli, I remember one time Dukie wanted some spicy tuna and I had to give him milk to tamp down the spiciness in his mouth. So all in all, I had only seen 3 different flavours of tuna, until I got here. I have seen some interesting combinations in 95g cans. There are quite a few selections of the canned variety I thought I'd share the interesting options one has for tuna here in Australia. Chunk style tuna in olive oil blend, chunk style tuna in spring water, light tuna in spring water, light tuna lemon & cracked pepper, light tuna onion & tomato and light tuna sweet chilli. The following are the non-light versions: chilli, lemon & cracked pepper, mango chilli, mild Indian curry, naturally smoked, onion & tomato savoury sauce, oven dried capsicum & chilli, dried tomato & basil, sweet chilli, sweet seeded mustard, sweetcorn & mayonnaise, tomato salsa and zesty vinaigrette. Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper in Oil, Tuna Chunks Chilli, Lime & Ginger in Oil and Tuna Chunks Garlic & Soy in Oil. They even have this lunch thing, tuna & beans and tuna & rice. They have salmon in the frozen food section and tinned sardines, salmon and anchovies.
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It is definitely not hard to find non meat dishes in a sub-tropical area like Brisbane, there's at least one fish n' chips shop in every suburb. I love calamari and the fact that they are not the teeny little rings I'm used to is even better. You can buy calamari and chips but with my diabetes I prefer to eat 6 calamari rings and share my husbands chips. The price for calamari in a shop can be anywhere from 70 - 90 cents a ring, which isn't bad considering they're preparing it for you and the tax is already included. Oh and the tentacles are special order, so you never have to worry if you're going to get alien heads with your rings. My husband prefers snapper when we go to these shops. A proper fish shop will not just give you any fish, you get to ask for what type of fish you want crumbed (breaded), I've seen dory, whiting, and some others I can't remember as I always get calamari, though I have had some stringy calamari at a few places and we are never, ever going back to those locations. I cannot wait for my friends to visit so they can see first-hand the size and taste of these calamaris.
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