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Critic’s been reviewing fish and chips for yonks and yonks, or eleven years to be exact. It seems there’s nothing as universal, nor as all-embracingly glutinous, as consuming a greasy packet of deep fried goodness. And so, at least for the sake of keeping tradition alive, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to bring you the best and the most disturbing that Dunedin has to offer.

This year, our “health conscious” editor fobbed off the calorie-ridden task onto David Milner, Cory Dalzell and their band of willing flatties.

The Flying Squid
 

Chips: $2.60. Fatties were too soggy and skinnies were dry.
Fish: $1.90. Average. No seasoning. Bland and dry.
Hotdog: $1.90. Floury and broken in half. Not fully battered.
Coke (can): $2.30
Oil: Vegetable
Customer service and general ambiance: Unfortunately the infamous “$2 shoestring” lady wasn’t there. Instead, we were greeted with a look of pure hatred. “Unable or unwilling to make eye contact.” The food took a long time to come, like twenty minutes. Good seating. Average magazines. Ordering system was average to terrible. But at the end of the day, Squidies is Squidies.
7/10
 

Botanical
 

Chips: $1.50. No potato in them. Mostly oil. Very crisp though, so quite nice.
Fish: $1.80. Crispy and crunchy. Not too oily. Yum.
Hotdog: $1.70. “Probably better than good, but not quite.” “A bit disappointed at the lack of actual sausage.” “Not too pleasing to the eye but once I bit into it, it was a nice surprise.”
Coke (can): $2.00
Oil: Vegetable
Customer service and general ambiance: “Unwilling or unable to communicate.” “Didn’t laugh at my joke”. “Bad hair cut.” Overall quite a sombre experience. Not really worth the walk, but will probably meet the standards of Aquinas and Salmond residents.
7.5/10

 
Willowbank
 

Chips: $2.20. “Not as good as when you’re baked or boozed”. Decent amount of chicken salt. Still pretty yum.
Fish: $3.30. Crumbed, looked like it was out of a Tegal packet. Though it was actually really good and nice and crispy.
Hotdog: $2.40. Actually a real sausage, not just frankfurter. “Meaty, quite salty, decent amount of batter.” “It was moist and came away from the stick quite pleasantly.” “Appearance acceptable, price ridiculous.”
Coke: Couldn’t remember
Customer service and general ambiance: “Was good to outstanding”. “She was real hot.” “I’d do her”. Very helpful. It was a bit hot in there and there was no seating. The loud fart-like sound that greets you as you walk in made one of our group “anxious, self conscious and paranoid.” She had to return to the car.
8.5/10
 

Great Wall
 

Chips: $2.00. “Really yum.” Nice and crispy. Pretty much exactly how chips should be.
Fish: $1.80. Was pretty much all batter. Some people like that though.
Hotdog: $1.40. Pretty decent. Nothing to write home about.
Coke: $1.80
Oil: Canola
Customer service and general ambiance: Very fast efficient service. Only took five minutes to get our food, which was almost a pity because for once the staff were more than willing to converse and exchange pleasantries. Overall a great experience. We couldn’t really think of anything bad to say about them.
9/10

 
Golden Sun
 

Chips: $1.50. “They were the Palmerston North of chips: small, uninteresting and pale in complexion.” They weren’t that flash but, at the end of the day, chips are merely the most convenient and respectable way of eating tomato sauce.
Fish: $1.80
Hotdog: $1.70. “I’m sorry but that looks like a chode.” Enough said.
Coke: $2.00
Oil: “Animal”
Customer service and general ambiance: Friendly enough. However when asked what oil they used the response was rather shockingly “animal not vegetable”. We weren’t quite sure what that meant but we assume it’s the less healthy option. Shocking. Vegetarians beware.
The review was slightly compromised when one of our number was insolent and incompetent enough to hand our leftover fish’n’chip wrapping from the previous review to a very confused Golden Sun Customer Service Assistant.
5/10

 
Mei Wah
 

Chips: $1.50. “Nice and crisp”.
Fish: $1.80. “Good crunch factor, quite nice.”
Hotdog: $1.70. Close to being the best effort you could pull off with a savaloy.
Coke: $2.00
Oil: Too afraid to ask.
Customer service and general ambiance: Friendly and efficient. Food was decent, not much wrong with it. Nothing had the “x factor” but everything was equally pretty okay. Basically, it was a very unemotional experience. We came away with no real feelings about the place.
8/10
 

Surprisingly, Flying Squid has been dislodged from the golden throne of fish’n’chippery which they’ve held since 2006 (with a brief hiatus in 2008), leaving new favourite Great Wall to take the crown.
 
 
Congratulations Great Wall!