Fish-Chips and Meat Pies

For a meat pie in Sydney you absolutely have to go to Harry's Cafe de Wheels at Woolloomoolo.

A 24 hour caravan type arrangements with the best meat pies around - pies and peas, pies and mash, pies with peas and mash. Mmmmm. And all for about $4.

No tables to sit out so you just dangle your feet over the wharf and hope that you don't spill too much down the front of your t.shirt. Great after a few beers at the pub across the road.

Fish and Chips - for upmarket fish and chips try Jordans at Darling Harbour or Doyles at Circular Quay or Watsons Bay.

By the way - all those places are in Sydney.

St Kilda is about 15 mins by tram from the city in Melbourne and would be a good place both for fish'n'chips and a pie. Try Acland St for both, the cake shops there are fantastic and some will have meat pies. If you buy fish'n'chips you can walk down to the beach (5 mins) to eat them. The Sunday craft market at St Kilda on the esplanade is pretty good too.
Kay

When I was in Melbourne last October we had fish and chips from a place called "Mussel's Fish and Chippery". It is a franchise and I know they have a shop in Brighton (beachside suburb) and also Carnegie (a bit out of the way for your needs). Not too sure of their other locations but the food was quite good. Fish and Chips in Australia might be a bit different than what you've had in London. As Australians living in England that is how we've found it at least. The fish & chip shops here in the UK seem to batter everything where at home a lot of places seem to bread crumb their fish or grill it. I'm sure you can still buy battered fish in Melbourne though.

Melbourne is so multi-cultural that I'm not sure that you will be truly experiencing the "real Melbourne" if you limit yourself to pies and fish and chips. I'm sure this isn't your intention so I thought I might mention some other of my favourite areas in Melbourne to eat. None of them too far from the city by tram. Try Victoria Street for great Vietnamese food (fresh and really reasonably priced). Lygon Street in Carlton for great Italian food. Brunswick Street in Fitzroy also has some nice places to eat and Fitzroy Street in St. Kilda. Melbourne has some superb places to eat. Lots and Lots of them. Maybe buy a good food guide when you get there and see for yourself. Although we're Australian I guess I think pies and fish and chips are a little overated. Nice every now and then though I admit. It might seem strange suggesting that when in Australia you try food from all these different cultures but that is the beauty of Melbourne. Melbourne used to have the second largest population of Greek people outside of Athens...not sure if this is still the case. Whatever you choose to eat I hope you enjoy my favourite city.

I second MMSVA's choice in Sydney. It is THE place to have a pie. Do they still call it a pie floater MMSVA?

Pie's with peas & pototo or pie floaters are very much a N.S.W. & some S.A. thing. I have never seen them anywhere in Victoria.
Most bakeries sell pies which are made on the premises so they vary in taste & flavours.
Milk bars also sell mass produced meat pies. (all over Australia.)
Fish & Chip shops are everywhere.
Most will be battered but you can ask for grilled. Ask for no salt if thats what you require as most will put it on automatically. They do not come with mayo or mustard.
You can put your own amount of vinegar or buy sachets of tartare sauce.
Fish & chips always taste better from the paper rather than on a plate.
A ferry trip down from Melbourne to Williamstown on a nice day with fish & chips on arrival at the water would be lovely.

Over New Year's we took a day trip on the ferry from Circular Quay, to Manly Beach. (Which we loved!) There is a fantastic fish and chips shop on the main street (can not remember the name) just steps from the beach. Had to wait in line but it was well worth it. Had the BEST tremendous fried (not greasy) calamari rings and great chips. Worth the 25 hr. flight from NYC.

Have sampled the fish and chips in London, Ireland and Australia and far and away the best to be had is small shop in Australia. Well I can speak to Victoria anyway.

Whenever my wife, who's from the northern Melbourne area, and I go back for family visits, she's managed to point me at outstanding little hole-in-the-wall shops everytime.

Try the 'flake'(shark). Trust me on this. That with a few potato cakes and a dim sim or two. Yum.

What!! Flake!! :0) Guess the best thing to do with a shark is to eat it - retribution there in that somewhere.
Give the shark a miss and do yourself a favour and get barramundi if they have any. That is a wonderful fish caught in northern waters and is the tastiest of all. Any other reef fish gets second billing and then down to the cods and perch.
Wherever you are there will be a local fish and chip shop and they are the best places to get F&C most of the time. Try a potatoe scallop too if they have them and/or the other bits and pieces. Usually is enough to keep you happy for about 24 hours and costs about $6Au

Yes, you should have seen it.

There was a man eating shark in downtown Bendigo. He appeared quite happy.

News at 11.

If in Victoria we have Potato Cakes & scallops...seperate things.Potato Cakes are extreamly thin whole slice of potato dipped in flour & batter & deep fried.

In N.S.W. they are potato scallops.

If you just ask for fish 7 chips you will always receive flake. However have a good look on the blackboard menu & you will see alsorts of fish available if it is a top shop.
Everyday shops just seem to have flake, whiting Blue Granader & sometimes coata.

If you happen to go to the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island there is a great shop on the esplanade Cowes....not to be confused with the one at the pier at San Remo. You can get beautifully cooked flake chips & salad for $5.95. (on a plate if you wish.) Whiting will cost you $6.50. a piece though.
Enjoy

Being an ex Victorian - have to say that Couta (barracouta)is yum too. Just watch out for the bones. I'm not sure you can get it anywhere but at Victorian fish and chip shops.

In Sydney you will usually get hake if you don't specifically ask for a particular type of fish. Flake seems to be only popular in Victoria.

If buying scallops (the seafood not the potato cakes) make sure that they have the orange roe still attached. Also watch it when you bite into the batter on these as they have tongue scalding qualities like no other.

Top off with some dimmies (steamed not fried), a pickeled onion and a good splash of vinegar and loads of salt.

Why is it fish and chips always taste better at lunchtime?

In Sydney, combine your fish'n'chipping with beach visiting. There are seafood places at most beaches. At Bondi, you can tell the best one by the queue outside; likewise Manly. Then you can sit on the beach, and fight off those pesky seagulls after your chips, as you watch the water.
All is right with the world!

Upmarket fish and chips?there's no such thing if you want to experience the real taste of fish and chips.The one rule is basically no chain type shops.Small family owned shops are best you will find these at any sea side town where you will not only find the best chips but your choice of a wide range of fish with the cath of the day specials and friendly people not the your average I-wish-I-was elsewhere-look you get from a Mc Donald's as for the meat pies you can also get this from a fish and chip shop, milk bar(not highly recommended) or a tuck shop in just about any suburb. The rule is if it's served with a knife and fork it's not very authentic aussie tucker. A four n' twenty in a paper bag with tomato sauce is the only way to go.

I am so surprised that no one's mentioned Dinkum Pies in MElbourne.

It's been there for yonks!!

It's a bit or a tricky description as it's in one of the very many hidden alley ways and arcades that is melbourne.

If you get on elizabeth st, head for the selangor pewter shop. It's between collins and bourke streets (probably even between collins and little collins). Next to this pewter shop, you'll see an entrance to an arcade. Go in and towards the end of the arcade, you'll find that it branches off into two with the alley on the left being less ornate. This is the alley you want. Dinkum Pies is a fwe shops to the left.

Plenty of Melbourne eats are found in little alleyways. If you go on straight on this alleyway and cross little collins, you'll find a little chinese chicken rice shop on your right. That's the best place for hainese chicken rice in melbourne and the lady's been there for 20 years.

to get there, you would've passed Laurent - a cake shop on little collins. That's the best cake shop though david jones is pretty good.

My favourite thai cafe is chilli cafe on russel st - between bourke and little bourke streets.

I could probably go on and on for food in melbourne. Have HEAPS of fun.

Here I am sitting in western America, noting I have 30 days until we leave for Australia, having lost 20 lbs. of excess weight, and already my mouth is watering for all these goodies you describe!

Would I be correct to believe there are Thai and/or Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop eateries to be found in most major centers in OZ? We have found them to offer low-calorie veggies and other not-too-fattening seafood meals at reasonable prices. Or are we expecting too much?

You'll have no problem finding Thai restaurants in the larger cities; Vietnamese are not yet as common but catching up. Chinese restaurants have been ubiquitous for many years all over Australia and used to be known as the only place to get a decent meal in many country towns. But don't expect to get fortune cookies. Some of the classier ones are excellent - Melbourne's Flower Drum was recently described by a NY Times fod critic as perhaps the best Chinese restaurant anywhere.

On meat pies - beware cheap pies filled with an indefinable mixture of gravy, minced (ground) steak and mysterious bits of gristle. You're better off paying say $4 for a freshly-baked pie containing chunky steak.

I thought "pie floaters" were a peculiarly Adelaide speciality. I saw one once. It consisted of a limp pie floating in a bowl of greyish pea soup, slathered with tomato sauce (ketchup). It looked thoroughly revolting.

BTW, don't forget our friends across the Tasman Sea. Where else can you buy such eccentric delights as mussel, and roast-lamb-and-mint-sauce, pies?

Neil_Oz: a thousand thanks for the warning! Limp pies floating in gray soup? Awful. Sounds positively lethal. I've had some heart-stopping gooey concoctions of pub grub while visiting England, but nothing like that. Even the ever-mysterious toad-in-the-hole, steak 'n kidney pie, and shepherd's whatever. I thank you for the heads-up alert!

USNR, I'll probably catch it from the South Australians - but free, frank and fearless advice is what this forum is all about, and we warn you about redback spiders, don't we? (Well no, maybe we don't.)

The soup was actually more grey-green, I think it's the kind that's made from dried split peas and ham - which in itself isn't bad, but spare me the pie 'n sauce. I can't be sure though - I saw it at a pie cart in Victoria Square late one night. I was on my way home from the pub and the next day swore never to touch a drop again.

English cuisine specialises in appetising names, doesn't it? You forgot Spotted Dick. I don't know what it is, and I'm not sure I want to.

I remember ordering a dish described as "fish and chips" somewhere in the US and receiving a plate of battered fish with a pile of potato crisps. I guess I should have known that something equating to our fish 'n chips would be advertised in the States as fish 'n fries to avoid confusion. It wasn't bad, but I probably should have followed my instincts and ordered the clam chowder.

Another wonderful pie "find" when travelling north from Sydney is at the little town of Karuah on the Pacific Highway north of Newcastle. Home made, stuffed with fresh oysters and light, flaky pastry.

Neil, pies in Queensland also are available with that grey-green gloop - "mushy" peas or "blueboilers". It's inserted under the pie crust so at least the pie doesn't float in it and they use Worcestershire sauce rather than tomato. Still revolting though.

The place in Manly luv2fly is referring to is called Oceanfoods - and it really is that good. Rick Stein (top British seafood chef) even went there on one of his tv shows.

Another great place for seafood is the Sydney Fish Markets. Buy some freshly cooked prawns or bugs (large crustacean looks like an elongated crab) and eat them by the water - it's unbeatable.

There are Balmain bugs and and Moreton Bay bugs. Balmain is an inner-Sydney harbourside suburb, once working-class but now reputed to be infested with affluent arty types. Moreton Bay is near Brisbane and locals believe their bugs to be far superior to their anaemic Sydney cousins. Out here in the real (inland) Australia we make do with a freshwater crayfish called a yabbie. Not bad, but lacks that sea taste.

While you're on about unusual pies across the Tasman, don't forget Mr Pepper's oyster pies. Truly orgasmic! Had trouble coming to terms with Oz pies, a terminology thing mainly. A steak pie in NZ is exactly that, whereas in Oz a steak pie is what NZers call a mince pie. You have to buy a "chunky" steak pie in Oz to get something equating to the Kiwi steak pie. Fish & chips? The best I've had in the world were from a Greek chippie in Paddington, London (UK). Interestingly the best fish & chippies I've found in both NZ and Oz were also run by Greeks. Someone asked about Thai food? Outside of Bangkok the best I've found were all in Christchurch NZ, and the worst (by a mile) in Brisbane Australia.

The best Thai food in Cairns is in the suburb of Stratford - The Garden Room - they do selections of Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Sri Lankan. The chef who is Indonesian, trained under the renowned chef David Thompson from Sydney's Darley Street Thai - David Thompson has now opened a restaurant in London, the name of which escapes me but I believe his second Sydney restaurant, Sailor's Thai in The Rocks is still operating. Sorry - getting a long way from fish & chips and pies!