Charis Seafoods — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

ONE star for the Fried food/fish n chips. Awful, worst fish n chips I've had on the Gold Coast. Fish was foul, from frozen, tasted old, watery, bland and rubbery. Chips and scallop potatoes were equally bad, soggy and just not good. We asked for chicken salt and they didn't put ANY salt on it instead. We were really embarrassed because we took our friend there who was visiting from Colorado. We should've taken him to our local corner fish shop instead. We had just watched the Pelican feeding, were starving and had walked there (3km round trip) so figured we'd just eat there. Absolute tourist trap, plenty of much better local spots around.

Fresh seafood is 4 stars, the oysters are always good, the shrimp/prawns that were peeled were just okay, next time I'll stick with shell on and peel myself. The sashimi was good. Will have to try their bugs and lobster one of these days.

Pelican feeding is sometimes 5 stars, sometimes 3 (when the guy who talks about the birds a bit and puts on an actual show which is also educational, it's great), but the other guy just goes out and feeds them, maybe weekdays vs weekends are different. Sometimes the crowd can get annoying and they don't give the birds the space they need, and parents don't parent their misbehaving children properly. I would maybe suggest placing temporary stakes or semi circle of rope...

Always our annual family tradition to come here, grab lunch/dinner from Charis Seafood, and eat alongside the venue, at the most family friendly beachfront park. Amenities like showers and toilets are available, plenty of shaded bench areas, with and without table tops, and the seating areas have astro turf right up unto the beach sand. The swimming area is in a concave shape, so it is perfect for the kids, as it breaks the wind and waves from the water traffic, and is in perfect view from the seated areas. The food is at pocket friendly prices, perfectly cooked, with a huge range of diverse seafood. The crispy and crunchy batter, is such an added bonus to the perfectly cooked fish, which was juicy and soft enough to vreak apart in your mouth. We also ordered fresh prawns, which were huge in size, and salted just enough accompanied by the thousand island sauce. Crumbed calamari was delicious in both soft and crunchy, and the scallops, prawns and pineapple fritter were huge in taste, and crunchy in texture. As you can tell, the food was amazing, the prep time was 5-10mins (amazing for a huge order for 6ppl), and to be able to eat it right beside the store and infront of the beach and play equipment, makes this place worth every star for its rating. Check times for the pelican feeding too, as the kids will love seeing the wildlife come...

Ordered grilled Snapper, and chips, I told the blonde waitress that I had Celeac disease and that obviously meant it had to be gluten free. After all there is a sign that says basically to inform the staff of this condition. I was halfway through the fish when I realised that it was coated in something. I hadn't noticed as I was fending off the seagulls from trying to eat my chips which were pretty ordinary as well. I was already starting to feel unwell. So I asked my wife to go in and ask what the coating was. She was told that it was coated in plain wheat flour, and that the waitress had not heard me say that I had Celeac disease. I did then find go back in myself and gave them a piece of my mind. We were given our money back, but that never stopped me from throwing it all up a half hour later. Now waiting for the diarea to hit me. Never had a problem here before, something has changed here. The fresh Seafood is great here, but the cooking side of the business has dropped the ball. We were going to get some fresh prawns after that lunch, but we decided to get them at Woolworth's instead. So they lost business I'm now in bed feeling quite unwell. Quite disappointing. Monday 29th...