SOMETIMES only a chippy tea will do. Battling my way through the wind and rain in Barrow town centre on Wednesday afternoon, the urge for some good old British comfort food came over me. I wanted some chips - and I wanted them now.

Ordinarily, my town of choice when it comes to chip shops is Ulverston. I grew up with chippies' names such as Errington's, Stretch's and Butler's a part of life. These days Ulverstonians can be divided between those who favour the Chippy Bank and those who prefer Lakeland Continental.

But Barrow's chippies have remained largely undiscovered by me. My comfort food of choice in the town is always McDonalds - the Olympic being the only chip shop in the town which I have ever frequented. Mattie's chippy is the only other one I've really heard of - largely because one of my colleagues is a great fan, and waxes lyrical about their spuds.

I confess, I had to Google it to find out where in the town it was as, for some reason, I quite wrongly had it in my head that it was in Rawlinson Street. It's not, it's at the top end of Ainslie Street, and on Wednesday, I set foot in this hallowed spot for the first time.

For Mattie's is no bog-standard back street chippy. It's award-winning and fantastically popular. When I pulled up nearby in the driving rain of Wednesday tea time, I naively expected to be the only customer. Dream on. I say I pulled up nearby, because the roads around the street-corner chippy were packed with cars; hordes of people were going in and out of the shop; and I realised that if I didn't step on it, I'd soon find myself in a very wet queue on the kerbside. Clearly, I had stumbled upon the Green's pie shop of chip purveyors.

Inside, it's smartly tiled, with nostalgic photos of Barrow in days gone by. As I joined the end of the queue I found myself looking at a framed photograph of members of the Mattie's team receiving an award for their chips from our very own group editor. In front of me, people all seemed to be ordering fish bites - clearly a speciality of the house. Those being shovelled at speed into cartons certainly looked tempting; but I decided that the fish-to-batter ratios were a bit too high for my liking, given the surface areas of the fish bites in question.

Traditionalist that I am, when it came to my turn to order, I went straight down the line for the classic: fish and chips twice, with mushy peas. There was a wait of around five minutes while more haddock went into the fryers, giving me time to muse on the number of fish this place must get through each year. I reckon we're talking a lot - and I reckon the haddock of the North Sea must have to breed like rabbits to keep up with demand.

Now, I don't know if the young lady serving me misheard me - but when it came to that point in the transaction when the chips started being doled out, it seemed she was providing me with enough spuds to feed a family of 10. Shovel-loads of the things were piled onto paper, so many that I felt duty bound to order some cartons of curry and gravy to go with them. In all the bill came to just over £17; so, with all the peas, gravy and curry, I guess that she hadn't got the order wrong - they're just phenomenally generous with the chips here.

I hurried home with my paper-wrapped parcels and I tell you, I had to exert iron willpower not to rip into them at the Strawberry traffic lights and start filling my face.

Back home, my husband and I goggled at the amount of chips. This being a food review, I was half tempted to serve the fish on bread boards and decant the chips into a couple of galvanised buckets - with some bread and butter served in a flat cap on the side - but I'm a bit boring, so we had to make do with round plates made from china.

The fish was delicious. Crispy batter (and not too thick), with plump, firm, white-as-snow flesh. Yummy. The chips were thinner cut than I am used to as an Ulverstonian but we liked them a lot. Masses of them were wasted, though, as there were just so many, I defy even Desperate Dan to have got through them. The peas, gravy and curry sauce were exactly what they should be from a chippy: thick and calorie-laden.

I can see why Mattie's is such a popular Barrow institution. It's traditional, it's good quality and it doesn't stint on its spuds. Next time, though, I'll be ordering one small portion between the two of us - which should keep us going for about a week.

By LOUISE ALLONBY

Pros: Traditional chippy

Massive portions

Cons: Be prepared for a wait
Road outside is very busy (I nearly got knocked down lugging my chips back to the car)

Food 4.5 Service 3.5 Atmosphere n/a Value 4