Telephone 01262 671920.
Address 2 Queen Street, Bridlington, East Yorkshire.
Open All week, 11.30am-6pm.
Price £4.30 for fish and chips.
Limited disabled access.

I was on a bus headed for Bridlington, sucking on some iced pink served in a wafer, and trying to remember the name of those cakes that used to jog Proust's memory. I'd had them in Paris once, but couldn't recall the name, and it was maddening. Hang on, that's it - maddening cakes.

My reverie was interrupted by a pensioner on the bus, yelling to his friend that he would be "spending the whole afternoon up boys". I was a bit taken aback, because Bridlington is a respectable and dignified resort (albeit a little down at heel nowadays), but then I glanced out of the window, saw a department store named Boyes, and realised that the gentleman's intentions were pure. I'd come here to visit Audrey's Fish and Chip shop and, as I approached the harbour, I found myself entering a delightful gastronomic world that I thought had disappeared in the 1960s. For just as Manchester's Rusholme district contains a veritable idly of Asian restaurants (idly is now the official collective noun), so this was home to a dozen quaint cafes that time had forgot: Cathy's Tea Room, Steps Cafe, Poppy's, the South Cliff Cafe and Nixi Plonks. Actually, that last one doesn't sell food, but a name like that deserves a mention.

I didn't need a street map to find Audrey's, because my tapir-like proboscis instantly detected the odour of beef dripping emanating from a nearby extractor fan. It's the perfect medium for frying fish, and because it coats the tongue (probably the arteries, too) with a thin film of fat as it cools, it protects the mouth in cold weather and allows you to savour anew the taste of your lunch for hours afterwards. Upon entering, I did my best to ignore the brown melamine on the tables, the comedy salt dispenser that resembled a light-bulb (as if most salt dispensers in this country weren't a joke anyway, 90% of them being empty or clogged) and the scenic view of the Queen Street lavatories.

I was here for a plate of proper fish 'n' chips 'n' mushy peas 'n' scraps 'n' pickled onions 'n' a side order of 'n's (so many 'n's, in fact, that I wished I could have donated one to the late Ronald Dahl, who had his 'n' shot off in the war).

The quality of the fish was magnificent, moist inside a batter casing that was dangerously close to burnt (as it should be), yet temptingly springy, not like those bricks you get down south that shatter like theatrical glass when prodded with a knife. The double-cooked greaseless chips were made with Maris Pipers, with interiors that were almost Belgian in their fluffy perfection, although, because it was all served on tiny, child-sized, oval teaplates, there was barely room for the mushy peas (or "oiks' guacamole", as Old-New Labour types call them).

Incidentally, lest you think that this sounds like an unhealthy meal, I have researched, and wish to point out that fish is low in saturated fat, while a 175g portion of chips contains double the fibre and four times more vitamin C than an apple; moreover, a plateful of cod and chips can contain as few as 400 calories, as opposed to 1,000 for the average curry. So balls to Tony B Liar's favourite chef, Jamie Oliver, and his "healthy" school dinners campaign. Like Loyd Grossman's appointment as the NHS food tsar back in 2000, it's a meaningless pre-election stunt that will all be quietly forgotten after May 5.

If I seem to have reviewed a disproportionate number of fish and chip shops during my time on this page, it's because, when cooked properly, they represent simple British cooking at its best. The "portion control" franchise merchants haven't yet managed to kill off the traditional owner-occupied businesses, and even in the most unprepossessing parts of the most unprepossessing towns there's a good chance of finding low-priced, top-quality food in a chippy, where (thanks to dripping) standards aren't dropping.

And having eaten a modest sufficiency, where could you find a better pudding than just round the corner at Topham's ice-cream parlour ("opened 1947") in Cross Street, where I watched as a full knickerbocker glory was prepared. Two Askey's wafers atop cherries, cream, vanilla ice cream, sliced bananas, fruit cocktail and pink, all for £3.05. Fish and chips followed by a knickerbocker glory. Surely the taste of the English seaside.

Much as I've enjoyed writing this restaurant page, this is my final column for the Guardian. Professional eating is a hazardous business, and since I began this lark I've had to be fitted with a training bra and my teeth (like a camel's in the desert) have been worn away by hours of diligent journalistic chewing. A future as the new Mr Creosote beckoned if I didn't take a stand, so I quit. And now, it's back on the running machine and a set of titanium dental implants for me. Truly, the road to hell is paved with food intentions.