Now the child in me is craving fish sticks and tartar sauce. That’s what’s for dinner tonight.
Added to my Amazon Wishlist. It’s called Tomato Sauce, and from Amazon it is a bit pricey!!
That’s the one. Wow, yes that’s quite pricey!
Salt & Vinegar. Maybe some Mayo on the side.
Salt.
And sausage or chicken instead of fish.
Then there’s the deep fried Mars bar. May be an Edinburgh thing? My daughter just had to try it & said it was, er, interesting…
I felt the batter didn’t really compliment the flavour, but partially melted Mars bar is yummy.
Salt, and nothing else.
I just read that recipe, and it’s the most bog standard recipe for fries … how are they especially “South African?” The name?
As for the original question, I like malt vinegar on both the fish and the chips. If the tartar sauce is decent, and there’s no malt vinegar available, I’ll use it on both. Ketchup on nothing. Although when I worked in the Petroleum Building near DTLA decades ago, the coffee shop on the ground floor had awesome fries. I’d sometimes eat them with ketchup by themselves. It was weird, but it was almost like eating fried shrimp. I miss that coffee shop so much.
A hilarious tourist food. Nobody in Scotland actually eats those. Effective for people to tell the tale of them, but not real food.
I think the official most popular food is (or was, I don’t keep up): Pakora with yoghurt sauce dip. It’s sort of like an onion bhaji only more like a ball shape,deep fried, and more pastry than veg, and potato and cauliflower rather than onion. The sauce is usually unlike most other indian accompanying sauce.
This just occurred to me after I posted a reply in the BLT thread. Has anybody ever tried fish and chips with Tabasco, Sriracha, or some other type of hot sauce? Long ago at an American fish and chips chain, I remember seeing bottles of Tabasco Sauce among the malt vinegar, ketchup, and tartar sauce at the condiment counter which indicates at least a few people liked to do that.
Myself as one, several others as well. But it’s a definitely a minority choice, or a mood thing. 
Is this a snack you’d get at a chippy? Or is it just popular at Indian restaurants? I ask because I used to eat them by the tonne when I grew up in Birmingham, going to balti houses where we’d have them for starters, but I haven’t seen them for years since I moved down south.
You get them everywhere, chippies, kebab shops, indian restaurants, and in a large portion, so a main meal level of quantity.
I’ve lived in the West midlands for around 25 years now, and while I’ve not eaten a lot in the Birmingham indian restaurants, the Wolverhampton ones never have pakora and plain refuse to make it (usually sikh descent). To me the only real valid one is a veggie one (despite me being an ardent meat eater otherwise), chicken or fish just doesn’t work, and I find it interesting that Birmingham versions do this, though I’ve found most of the decent places are out of town towards Sparkbrook and not usually anywhere I’d go. I’m intrigued now and might get a taxi out there once the covid is over.
BTW, there’s no reason for pakoras to be potato or cauliflower rather than onion. I’ve had plenty that were onion.
I’ve been making baked pakoras with cauliflower, carrot, and onions (all together)
Head to Balsall Heath and find a balti house. Back when I was a regular, potato pakora cost 50p as a starter. Ok, it was the early 90s. Came with a rather vibrant red dipping sauce.
Well, I’ve no experience of them outside Scotland, and I always assumed they had been a niche snack which took off in Scotland, and they can contain onion as long as they have other things (I’ve had ones just a soft spinach mix), but if it’s just onion in chick pea flower with spices they are usually flattened and called onion bhaji and have a different sauce. Onion bhaji are far more universal, I can get them anywhere down where I live, yet the only time I’ve had a good pakora here in 20 years was an indian restaurant where the chef came from Aberdeen.
Tabasco, definitely. It’s basically just spicy vinegar, so it goes great with both fish and chips. Frankly, anything deep-fried (well, except maybe for a Mars bar or whatever those wacky Scots are up to.) I use tabasco on my French fries here all the time.