What makes a good fish and chip shop?

Do you have a favourite fish and chips shop? Photo / 123rf

From The Weekend with Karyn Hay for RNZ

Fish and chips are a great kiwi summer treat but where to get the good ones? To the rescue comes Whanganui man Brandon Sayring and his fish and chip review blog Here's the Scoop!

Brandon launched his blog after moving home from Japan last year. Pioneering American food blogger Steven Shaw was an inspiration, he tells Karyn Hay.

"He was a lawyer who at night would be a hot dog reviewer… so I decided to review our national dish."

Using a fake name, Brandon orders a single serving of fish and chips with the "default" fish for his review.

In most fish and chip shops, this is blue warehou which he admits he's\ "pretty partial to".

"If it's fresh and prepared right it can be some of the best fish you'll ever have."

The price for a single serving of fish and chips can range from $4 to $11 dollars and price doesn't always reflect quality, Brandon says.

He judges each meal on four criteria - amount of chips, quality of chips, size of fish and quality of fish - which are each marked out of 5. Oiliness, satisfaction, fullness and the after-effects of the meal are also taken into account.

Most fish and chip shops in New Zealand use the Mr Chips brand of chips, and it isn't a bad thing to play it safe this way, Brandon says.

"Hand-cut is a real gamble, eh? The thing with bought chips is that the companies will parboil the potatoes and prepare them. With the hand-cut a lot of the places put raw potatoes straight into the deep fryer … it's just a gamble."

Recently, Brandon awarded a perfect score of 20 to Whanganui's @Park Takeaways whose fish and chips (with moki) "blew him away".

Note: Brandon says he eats fish and chips only once a week.

Check out to see if any of these fish and chip recommedations are in your town!

• The Kai Cart - Oban, Stewart Island-Rakiura.

• Athena & Peter at Plimmerton Fish Supply, 2 Beach Rd Wellington: have cooked awesome F&C for over 30 years for our family.

• Southbridge takeaways in Canterbury: has some of the best standard fish and chips and their blue cod is stunning. Also their entire menu is way above average.

• Chan Takeaways - Duke St, Mt. Roskill: Perfect chips and crumbed fish.

• Glen Innes shopping centre Marsic Brothers.

• Fed Up in Paraparaumu: blue cod and chips par excellence (take away or dine in).

• Richmond Seafoods in Christchurch: is one of the greatest chippies.

• Featherston: they do amazing crumbed tarakihi and gold crisp chips that are soft in the middle. No 1.

• Farteze in Oteha Valley Road Norrhcross.

• The Puhoi Store.

• The fish and chip shop in Akaroa: fantastically cooked fish.

• Fush and chups the Deck at Reotahi, Whangarei Heads.

Randwick Takeaways in Moera Petone: they have gluten free crumbed fish and the buffalo chips.

Santa fe milk bar, Greymouth.

Cods n Crayfish Kaikoura: Fresh delicious cod & hand-cut chips - embarrassing how many times you can eat there on a holiday.