Salt Seafood Deli, Grey Lynn and Mt Eden Village Fish Shop

Salt does the kind of heavenly chips so fondly remembered from childhood. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Salt Seafood Deli
Herald rating: * * 1/2
Address: 476 Richmond Rd, Grey Lynn
Phone: (09) 360 7111
Open: Tues-Sun 4-9.30pm

Mt Eden Village Fish Shop
Herald rating: * * * *
Address: 438 Mt Eden Rd, Mt Eden
Phone: (09) 630 9003
Open: Mon-Sat 9am-8pm,
Sun 4pm-8pm

Friday night. Kid heaven. Four fish and a couple of bobs' worth of chips was plenty. An extra piece of fish always fell out as the steaming newspaper was unwrapped and the chips were golden and straight and as long and thick as a kid's finger.

Tradition fades. Auckland today prefers Asian takeaways, though the rest of the country still adores shark'n'taties. If we told them that stir-fries contain about 6 per cent fat, curries 10 per cent, deep-fried battered fish 20 per cent and chips 11.5 per cent, they'd call us food-fetish, gym-obsessed Jafas.

Which Kirsten and I certainly aren't. Okay, she does yoga and plays soccer and I used to. No, not yoga.

We met in the Gypsy Tea Rooms, the part of Richmond Rd that likes to call itself West Lynn. It has so many delightful establishments that it's a pity not to take advantage of several in one hit.

After a couple of Sols we trawled across the road to Salt, which you may have read about in Viva's annual takeout awards, when it was voted supreme winner and best fish'n'chips.

It doesn't look like a fish'n'chippy. Salt is big, clean, shiny black wood panelling and white tiles and long white tables and spongy stools. Little screens that play Finding Nemo. Nemo's mates are also found in the $45 seafood box for two (fish, smoked mussels, prawns, calamari, fishcakes, scallops, chips).

No. I craved fish'n'chips. Viva's award certificate promised "delicate, almost tempura-like, beer-battered fish is mouthwatering and the golden fries cooked to perfection".

Those worried about the 20 per cent fat can have theirs breadcrumbed or grilled. Not this boy: snapper and chips is my poisson.

Well, it would have been, but there was none, only gurnard or tarakihi. Both are firm-fleshed and suited to deep frying, but taste too mild, almost bland in comparison with snapper.

The tarakihi arrived in a small cardboard box. Bad sign. Fish'n'chips should arrive in the same parcel - white newsprint since the 80s, when newspaper fell foul of the Food Police.

The chips came a moment later in a brown paper bag. They were superb: golden and straight and long and thick as the ones from childhood. The fish, though, was tasteless, and the beer batter soggy rather than crisp. It wasn't so much melt-in-your-mouth as drip in your hand. I understood why they provided plastic knives and forks.

Kirsten had prawn and scallop noodles.

"Try some," she offered the box.

"I can't do seafood," I told her.

"I wouldn't worry," she said. "There's none in here."

Kirsten is an Aussie. She wasn't coming the raw prawn. Rather a complete lack of. Or scallops.

Maybe they were having a bad night.

Where, then, for superlative fish'n'chips? A few nights later Bridget phoned from Pakuranga (don't ask why), saying, "Meet you at your place in 15. Get fish'n'chips."

A short bike ride later I was at the counter of the Mt Eden Village Fish Shop, now in the third generation of the Dean family. Fish is smoked on the premises. Their fish pies are sold frozen in foil packs.

Pieces of fish are enormous. The beer batter is dark gold and sweet. The chips are golden kidfingers. It comes wrapped together ... in faux-newspaper.

But you can't please all of the people. Sorry, Bridget. They don't do battered sausages.