Coogee Fish Shop, 201A Coogee Bay Road
‘ Underrated. A throwback to the 80’s fish & chip shop, so if that’s what you’re looking for then you’ll love it’ The A Team, August 2019
Little rituals. I’ve lived in Sydney for 15 years and for as long as I can remember Potato Scollops and Fish Cocktails 1980’s style are best purchased and eaten seaside in this Eastern Suburbs gem.
I’m an 80’s kids.
I grew up at a time when $2 worth of hot chips would feed a family of 4 and then some.
I grew up at a time when potato scollops were cut by hand and coated in thin, crispy batter and then loaded with plain salt. Chicken salt was not available till the early 90’s.
I grew up at a time when fish cocktails weren’t a thing – battered fish the size if a thong was. A piece of shark would set you back a single gold coin.
Fast forward 3 Decades and 2 Fish cocktails and 3 potato scollops are priced at $7.00.
But for that 1980’s taste I would pay five times that amount.
These hidden gems, these fish and chip shops stuck blissfully in an 80’s time warp are few and far between. When you find them, you stick by them. You travel to support them. And you hold you breath upon approach, hoping to god that they have not succumbed to high rental costs, the Hungry Jacks or Subway epidemic that swallows up seaside realestate.
Today as I ate my 2 fish cocktails and 3 potato scollops I was that 80’s kid again. Carefree and smiling as oil dripped from the fish cocktails, coating my fingers. Salt coating my lips as I crunched my way through the crisp battered hand cut potato scollops.
Today was a good day. No, today was a great day.
