Basin Noodle House

REVIEW LOCATION:
Wellington

Store: Basin Noodle House, 20 Adelaide Road.
Price: $5.00

Amount of chips:     5/5
Chip quality:        4/5
Size of fish:        5/5
Fish quality:        3/5

Total Score:         17

Well drained of oil?: Yes and No
Satisfied?: Yeah totally I feel great.

Comments: I got introduced to this place by my friend Kerry Ann Lee and it has become easily one of my favorite places to eat in Wellington. It's so unassuming and has some of the best Chinese food I've had here. Hefty portion sizes and intense flavours, they do nothing to pander to the bland western palette or "kiwi hot" clientele when it comes to their traditional dishes. I loved my experience tonight tho - a guy on my left eating a literal platter of steak eggs and chips and a woman on my right coughing the entire time and spitting into a napkin as master chef plays on the wall tv behind me. I hate that show with all my might but somehow it worked and set a nice mood. The chips in my meal were plentiful and I'm highly certain they were Mr Chips brand fries as they brought back memories of getting a cup of chips at the demolition derby when I was a kid. The interior was creamy mash and crunchy exterior but I'm gonna say maybe a little too hard probably due to the fryer oil being too hot. The oil drainage of the chips was on point tho ay! The fish was a real good sized cut of shark however quite thin and quite oily with a puffy wonton batter coating. Batter ratio was on point tho. Insane good value and well seasoned with the added bonus of a squirt of sauce if u dine in but def keep on the Chinese menu tho.

Souvlaki At Acropolis

REVIEW LOCATION:
Wellington

Store: Souvlaki At Acropolis, 508 Broadway, Strathmore Park.
Price: $5.50

Amount of chips:     4/5
Chip quality:        3/5
Size of fish:        5/5
Fish quality:        2/5

Total Score:         14

Well drained of oil?: Yes
Satisfied?: I don't feel yuck but I'm still p hungry.


Comments: I noticed this place when I reviewed the neighbouring fish and chips shop a few weeks back. The decor is amazing! A lot of Navy and azure paint and objects everywhere. It has a real cluttered Mom Interior Design meets Football Hooligan aesthetic. My favourite piece was a cheap A2 stretched canvas painted using a big house painting brush and a minimal amount of blue paint. The food tho... Chips were pretty under cooked and for some reason they eventually made my tongue numb. At a guess I'd say McCain fries and for a professionally prepared chip, the exterior had barely any crunch and the middle was dense raw potato. The fish looked promising as heck - it was a chunky piece and the colour seemed great. This first impression was quickly shattered onto the floor into a million pieces after my first bite. The batter was thicc and my mouth was full of barely cooked dough and flavourless mush. I was trying to pick the fish type based on its flavour profile but it tasted like nothing. The meal was perfectly seasoned, cheap and prob the best bang and hang in Wellington so far! I still feel hungry so might need a second dinner.

Seaview Takeaways

REVIEW LOCATION:
Wellington

Store: Seaview Takeaways, 92 Lyall Parade.
Price: $5.50

Amount of chips:     5/5
Chip quality:        4/5
Size of fish:        5/5
Fish quality:        5/5

Total Score:         19

Well drained of oil?: Yeah.
Satisfied?: I feel great. 


Comments: This place was recommended to me a while back by Apa Hutt which is quite bold considering how brutally honest I can be but I'm pleased to announce that this place is coooool! The super lovely Maori and Chinese ladies behind the counter were an unlikely duo who knew exactly what they were doing back there. Swiftly maneuvering around each other in the small cooking space it was like watching some sort of contemporary fish and chips version of the Rush Hour movie. The menu was a chaotic mix of hand rendered, sticker and paper printed fonts all over the place next to a NZ Commercial Fish poster and there was a sick mermaid painting hidden in the corner. The chips were chunky home cut fries and normally I'm not huge on thick fries due to the center usually being under cooked and bland. These were parboiled before being deep fried which made them mostly creamy in the middle but due to the irregular shape, the big chips were ever so slightly under cooked but were otherwise great! The fish was quite batter heavy but since it was cooked so well, this was actually a good thing and gave it a decent amount of crunch. Very tasty, fresh and a great size. Everything was well seasoned, great bang & hang and fair priced. My mouth is a little waxy and I'm feeling 'adult full' - I could totally eat more but I have eaten enough and shouldn't have any more and not be a greedy guts.

Golden Gate Takeaways

REVIEW LOCATION:
Wellington

Store: Golden Gate Takeaways, 53A Cambridge Tce.
Price: $5.70

Amount of chips:     5/5
Chip quality:        3/5
Size of fish:        4/5
Fish quality:        2/5

Total Score:         14

Well drained of oil?: Real Drained.
Satisfied?: Feeling weighed down.


Comments: I had high hopes for this shop. I had been told good things about it. The walls were fake marble and the menu was hand rendered in red vivid. It all went south when I asked to use the bathroom and he told me to use the bathroom across the road at KFC. I felt a bit weird about going to a takeaways store just to use the bathroom. I reserve that sort of spontaneous loo use for public toilets and gas stations so I just held on until I reached the place where I'd eat. The chips were severely under cooked and really dense. The surface had a soft crunch thru to a raw potato center. Fish was heavy on the batter and way under cooked. Everything was pretty hard to swallow but I guess their bang and hang and seasoning was on point. My lips are itchy.