438 Mount Eden Road, Mt Eden, Auckland 1024
mtedenvillagefishshop.co.nzEmail us
Reviews
When I want a catch of the day, I take a chilly bin and head to Auckland's awesome village fish-monger in the heart of Mt Eden. They do a mean fish and chip feed and I love it that you can select your fresh fillet and then order it battered, crumbed or grilled. But the reason I come here is because fresh is best and these guys do fish the old fashioned way - straight from the sea, sustainable as and tasty as all get out.
This is a great little fishmonger in the heart of Mt Eden Village. They sell the good old-fashioned, battered stuff, or you choose your own fillet and have it crumbed or grilled. The potato fritters are nice and light, and there are other treats like smoked salmon samosas and chowder on offer too. Definitely worth heading this way when you get that craving!
Its walls are adorned with years of accolades from Auckland-area publications. Its 4th consecutive year as the top-rated fish & chip shop by Metro magazine should mean something, right? I had never heard of the place until I ran across the Top 3 Fish & Chips article by Metro, so I thought I would give it a try. The store is well located in Mt. Eden. It's a small interior, but there are places to squat and have a bite to eat. The half-shell oysters I tried were excellent, and they had a small tray of sample mussels that had been smoked. Also excellent. I ordered the battered snapper and half a scoop of chips, expecting finally to have met the penultimate fish & chips. They weren't. In fact they weren't even close. Odd that the Metro article lamented the absence of salt in modern fish & chips, but gave the Mt. Eden Village Fish Shop such high praise. I used three -- yes, three -- packets of salt just to get the chips and fish to the proper level of saltiness. I could have forgiven the salt problem if the batter were in other ways unique or excellent. It is practically impossible to ruin a good piece of snapper, but coating it in a boring, tasteless batter that isn't even crispy seconds after it comes out of the fryer is one way to try. Incredibly disappointing. The fish & chip shops in Ponsonby (my review) and Grey Lynn are heaps superior and they don't get many accolades at all. That's a pity.
As far as fish and chips go, I wouldn't rave about the Mt Eden Village Fish Shop. The prices are high and the product is average. My biggest tip would be to get battered fish, not crumbed - in my experience it's at least twice the sized of the crumbed, I would go here again because it's one of the better fish & chips in the region, but I definitley wouldn't go out of my way.
