For some reason Scotland seems to like deep frying stuff. There's the usual fish and chips, but also Mars bars, pizza and all sorts of sausage and pudding. Additionally that Scottish favourite haggis gets the deepfried treatment, which is a different mode to the standard serving on this.
For another reason I don't know, the chippies seem to be run by Italians. Go figure.
Merchant is one of the highly reputed one's in Glasgow and in fact was the only place in Glasgow to be in the top 50 for the UK and they even state they were awarded best in Scotland. Not a bad set of accolades.
It's a simple small cafe where everything is breaded and fried, whereas the chips are fresh cut potatoes sitting in a giant vat.
- Haddock in batter supper £5.8 - a nice fish with a mild flavour, where the predominance was the wispy crisp slightly thick salted batter. The chips (which are the "supper" part) were soft rather than crispy, but at least they are actual potatoes freshly cut;
- Lemon sole £6.5 - this was too thin and so the fish got lost amongst the friedness;
- Black pudding £2.9 - had an unusual flavour of cloves. Definitely not what I expected. Like good Scottish pudding there was mostly meat and not much chunks of fat;
- Haggis £2.9 - mild flavour overall.
It's a good fish and chip. I'd stick with the classic haddock, being the cheapest and the best part of the meal.