Harbour 321 Restaurant NOW OPEN

[Rachael]

Same question re the fish and chip shop in Penge - skin on or skin off? (And is this the fish and chip shop in the little parade by Penge East station, just off Newlands Park?)

[Steveofsyd]

Chippie next to Penge East station is "skin on". Harbour in Syd is "skin off" but not for all fish types i.e Plaice.
I prefer Harbour fish as they cook it to order, so it doesn't dry out in the heated display.

[Rachael]

Thanks, Steveofsyd. I don't care for skin on, and I do like the fish from Supreme - they also cook it to order. If they could just sort out their chips...

[Steveofsyd]

Never tried Supreme as it a bit out of my way....may do so if I'm driving back from somewhere. Thanks for the tip.

[Steveofsyd]

Is it me, or has the quality of Harbour 321 gone way down since the original people left?
Remember the young guy and rather fierce lady who kept them on their toes? Every time I ask, I get told they are on holiday!
Well the chips are no where near the same, they taste and feel recycled and worse still the fish seems lower quality and not as fresh. Lots of grey meat....ugh!
They are also now in the habit of cooking in advance and leaving to go hard as opposed to frying to order as before...
I'm very disappointed.....has anyone else noticed?

[mosy]

The original magic of "really looking forward to" seemed to go a few weeks ago, dropping more to the "OK I suppose" category in my opinion. I go only occasionally now. I always buy a large cod, no chips. The fish I bought on Friday was fine if ignoring the pint of grease and hard batter - have they changed the recipe?

The cod itself was good flaky fish (not dry double-cooked which one I had must have been), but agree it had a lot of the grey bloodline flesh on the bottom. I imagine it's bought in like that (known as close-skinned) so maybe the previous chef cut that away during preparation?

Since chippy fish is too expensive not to like, I discovered to my surprise that Tesco's fresh fridge battered/crumbed fish beats on quality in my opinion. Price less than £2 per decent portion doesn't hurt either. (I avoid their frozen ones like the plague.)

Baked fish doesn't really satisfy that deep fried chippy urge (which is painfully messy to cook at home) so hopefully Harbour 321 will go back soon to being consistently very good again.

Just my opinion of course. As I usually go outside rush times, I'd love to hear better reports in case there's a good or best time to go?

[mosy]

I'm just thinking about the pre-fried fish bit. They still say "6 minutes" so I always wander off, which was fine when it was always good. It's a while since I stood there and watched them dip the raw fish in batter. Maybe I'll stay and watch next time.

[Steveofsyd]

Thanks for the updates. It's really changed for me since the original family left.

[leenewham]

When did the original people leave? We went there at the send of last year and the service and food seemed very average (although we had the meze rather than fish and chips).

We haven't been back since, we always get our pie, mushy peas, gherkin and chips from the place near the Dolphin and they are fab. Plus it's always nice being greeted with a beaming smile and a chat which we always get there. Their fish is pretty good too.

[Tim Lund]

Is it me, or has the quality of Harbour 321 gone way down since the original people left?
Remember the young guy and rather fierce lady who kept them on their toes? Every time I ask, I get told they are on holiday!

By the "rather fierce lady" do you mean the one with a very narrow face? I think she was great - I've rarely seen anyone so obviously enjoying her work. Sorry to hear about these changes.

[Steveofsyd]

Yes, that's her.
My 11 year old thought they she looked like the lady from that Aardman film...Chicken Run.

[Whiftoff]

Hope she's not reading this post

[Spiaria]

I agree it's gone downhill. Had cod and chips from there last weekend and the fish was dry and overcooked, the batter was soggy and the chips hard. Very disappointing. I guess I'll have to go all the way the the Jolly Bee for my Friday night fix from now on...

[Parker1970]

I have also noticed the drop in quality personally. You can also tell that a lot of people have noticed it as there was usually always a few people in front of you when you go in, now you go in and get served straight away, it's clearly not as busy as it was.

[Nigel]

Nothing much to add re the harbour apart from it was ok when I used them a year ago but a reminder that the Tasty Fish Bar by Penge East is consistently excellent .
Never had a bad experience - worst I can say is it was ordinary about twice in 15 years but basically excellent and I speak as a heavy user of cod and chips
A very good evening
Nigel