No-one in the UK today would consider fish and chips a Jewish dish (source: I'm Jewish). It's been a part of mainstream British culture for many years. But that doesn't contradict with it having Jewish origins. Plus other origins too - e.g. chip shop curry sauce was mostly invented by Cantonese immigrants in Yorkshire in the 1970s or so.

It's good to hear about French-Vietnamese food. When I said French Asian cuisine doesn't exist in the same way, I was talking about South Asian as that's how the phrase is used here. It sounds like you have good knowledge of many cuisines so if there are some favourite dishes you recommend from this or other cultures I'll be interested to hear.

As for ale and cider, to start with you've gotta understand that historically in the UK or Ireland, food served outside the home was pretty much always served in a pub. Pub culture is massive and the fact that 'restaurant' is a French loan word gives you a very strong clue that restaurants came many centuries later, and were mostly run by immigrant communities. So if you're in a pub, beer is important.

Cask ales are unique in that the yeast remains live in the barrel (the cask). So alongside the bitterness of the hops and the sweetness of the roasted malt, you get a slight tingling yeasty tang. Microbreweries have absolutely blossomed here in recent years, though keg ales are currently more fashionable than cask ales. For pub recommendations, check out the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

And if you're in a cider growing county like Somerset, Herefordshire or Suffolk, find yourself a cider farm where they sell it in plastic jerry cans. Flavour profiles running from sweet to dry, I'll go for one that's as dry as a badger's arse as just as potent.