Clipper Quay Street Food Market
100-114 Strand Road
Derry
clipperquaystreetfood.com
“SO, what d’you fancy for dinner tonight? Burger? Pizza?”
“Yes, please.”
“Or how about Chinese, or some tacos?”
“Yes, those, too.”
“With an ice cream cone to finish?”
“Perfect. And maybe a couple of beers, a Football Special, and a spinach smoothie, too?”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“Clipper Quay Street Food Market.”
The market occupies the ground and mezzanine floors of a multi-storey unit along the quay running along the west bank of the Foyle. It’s a great location, handy for town, on a route highly-favoured by the city’s flaneurs.
The premise of the operation is to bring some of Derry’s favourite restaurants and street food operators together, under one roof. There are six there, currently: Notorious, Bee Eaters, Wok Hay, Cugino’s, El Tapas Grá and Scoops Ahoy. The website also mentions House of Pancakes, but there was no sign of that when we were there.
We got there early Friday evening and it was heaving. We had to walk the length of both the ground floor and the mezzanine before we found a table, and, even then, we had to ask a couple if they minded shifting up a bit.
Drinks orders are taken and paid for at the tables. For the food, you have to go and order from your vendor of choice, who supplies you with a little contraption which buzzes and flashes when your food is ready, at which point you then go and get it.
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Eating here is not a quiet experience. The only things serenading you will be loud and lively chatter and the bleeps and fizzes of these devices that you know will go off, but that still surprise you when they do.
We ordered from four of the six different stalls. This is one of the key plus points about the food market: the range of food available means there’s something for everyone.
My brother knew before he went in that he was going to eat Chinese. He loves it, and he thoroughly enjoyed the sweet and tangy sour chicken from Wok Hay. The rice was a little bland, but the chicken was very good – moist and tender meat inside nicely crisp casing, all sitting in a lovely sharp, citrussy sauce. The chicken wings he also ordered were terrific – plenty of meat, a coating that stayed crunchy, and a delicious, sweet, honey glaze with a good, savoury kick.
My daughter’s pizza was fine, although the base was thicker and breadier than I would have liked. The star of her order, however, was the waffle fries. They were crisp, sweet, and well-seasoned, and I had to pull out every trick in the book to distract her while I nicked some.
I’ve had a Notorious burger before, so I felt I was on to a winner in ordering another. It might have been only a thin patty, but it was juicy and full of flavour, maybe made with a mixture of beef and pork, and worked well with the crispy onion.
There was no bacon with it, as they’d run out, which we only found out when we took it back. They should have let us know beforehand, but, in some ways, I can’t blame them. The whole place seems a very intense working environment.
The spice box from El Tapas Grá didn’t really work for me. The individual elements were all good – decent chips, lovely chunks of salty halloumi, an interesting sweet and sharp sauce dotted with scallion and pomegranate – but, together, it didn’t quite come off. El Tapas Grá is such a good restaurant, though, that I can’t see it taking them long to adapt to this new kind of environment.
The food here is good. But the food is only part of the appeal. What the Clipper Quay Street Food Market offers is a great Derry destination, full of noise, atmosphere, laughter, stress, chatter and fun.
So, as Lou Reed almost sang - Hey babe, take a walk on the quayside.
THE BILL
- Smash burger and fries (Notorious) - £10.00
- Margherita pizza slice (Cugino’s) - £4.25
- Waffle fries (Cugino’s) - £4.50
- Spice box (El Tapas Gra) - £10.00
- Sweet and tangy sour chicken, egg fried rice (Wok Hay) - £8.80
- Honey and soy glazed chicken wings (Wok Hay) - £6.20
- Coca-Cola x 2 - £6.60
- McDaid’s Cream Soda - £3.30
