Fish 'n Chips: East vs West
Monday, 21 April 2008 by Hock
After a good "hour" of fishing off the rocks of Huia situated in the now not so polluted Manukau Harbour we called it quits and went and ordered way too many fried things: fish and chips and fried oysters and fried scallops and fried potato cakes (unfortunately no french fry hotdog mashups ) from the 120 year old Huia store. The wait was long and the fry up was mediocre or as my sister-in-law put it "It wouldn't be NZ if it wasn't slightly disappointing". Its one of the most annoying paradoxes of NZ that no matter how close to the ocean you are, or how many fishing boats you see dotted in the harbour you can only ever seem to get seafood covered in batter and deep fried.
A flock of ducks hang out near the Huia Fish and Chips store and seem to make a comfortable living from being fed left over fried things. I am sure that the ducks also have plump little foie like livers and would be much tastier than your average wild duck, but because they are so domesticated by their daily chip feed and it is illiegal in NZ to shoot a "sitting duck", I guess they sit in the same category as the NZ wood pigeon.
As far as fried fish goes, we faired much better on Auckland's other harbour the Waitemata , we ordered from the Fish Pot Cafe a "light snack" of Tarakihi and fried pacific oysters which I personally don't care for but these were simply delicious, just barely cooked but with a very crispy batter yum!
Oh, and instead of fat ducks and westies there were cute little naked asian babies swimming in Trevor Moss Davis Memorial Fountain.
