Kingfish Takeaways

       REVIEW LOCATION:

New Plymouth

Store: Kingfish Takeaways, 5/130 Carrington st.
Price: $7.30

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

Total Score:         15

Well drained of oil?: No.
Satisfied?: Fitting in any more food wouldn't be a wise choice.

Comments: 

I was having a laugh about this road the other day. At some point it changes from Carrington St to Carrington Road. I don't know why or where the change occurs and I have just come to terms with the fact that most things road related in New Plymouth don't have to make any sense at all. It's like the city planner is just 2 kids piggybacking in a trench coat pretending to be a grown-up.

Our first choice for tonight's review was a place called Lobster Pot but it seems the phone number listed online has changed so we couldn't get through. Next choice was Kingfish and after placing the order the woman on the other end said that will be a 10 minute wait. I took that with the same grain of salt I had taken with other 10 minute waiters who had always grossly under estimated wait times. It's Friday night. She's dreaming.

I arrived 11 minutes after the call had ended, their blue and yellow signage welcoming me with the aesthetic of a plumbing shop. There it was - my order waiting in their pie warmer draw and the girl on the register had already rung it up. I can't have been in the store for more than half a minute. They were so efficient that I had no time to bask in the ambience. Walking back to the car I had no idea what Kingfish looked like inside and I thought to myself, "What just happened?".

As I ate the chips I started to figure out the secrets behind their 10 minute wait time. All of the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. The bubbly surface texture, the light colour grading, the lack of structural integrity. They had their fryer cranking on a high heat which they thought would cut down on development time so they could process their orders at a higher rate. The forgiving brand of chips they use gave them a little leeway as they are parboiled but this rushed approach left them undercooked and oily. I was also faced with having to eat a few bruised chips which is never a great time.

The fish was the old trick where you give the illusion of a big slice of fish but fillet it thinly. While this cut of Warehou itself tasted delicious, it too was also not given enough time to drip off excess oil.

They had all the right ingredients to be a very good shop, their flaws just lie in their want to offer very fast fast-food. A few minutes added to their wait time for the sake of more quality control is not going to bleed any customers but how thing are going I know I won't be back.