Ocean & Paddock — Restaurant in Western Australia

I wasn’t highly impressed with “the best fish and chip shop in WA” I’m afraid.

The big sign outside says they close at 9, but the one on the door says 8. We had clocked the shop walking past so went in at 7:30 (thinking we had lots of time). A simple “The kitchen is closed” or “by the way, please can you be out by 8” or even “we can only do takeaway” would have rectified the problem, but unfortunately we were not made aware of the time limits. I felt very sorry for the poor serving girl, who was very accommodating, but clearly desperate to get home (it was dark at this point). The online menu is also completely wrong, I’m the only vegetarian in my group and had been quite relieved to see they had a wide range of tasty looking veggie options, cauliflower cheese balls with onion gravy, etc. When we arrived there was none of that and I felt as if I was going a bit crazy for asking if they were still available. None of it was.

I asked if they still had the onion gravy. “We have normal gravy.” Ah, that’s probably not vegetarian. I thanked her and ordered something else. I had the battered mushrooms, meant to come with aioli but was given tartare sauce. I think it took four passes before we all got what we had ordered. The mushrooms themselves were fine. I was itching to leave by the time we did, the aura in the room was pretty tense.

I’ve worked in service before, I appreciate it’s annoying when people come in close to closing, I really do. But there are plenty of ways to mitigate that that issue in a well-run, established restaurant. The girl behind the counter was very sweet, and obviously tired. The management needs to sort this out so that employees aren’t kept late, guests aren’t treated like they’re a nuisance, and the menu accurately reflects what’s on offer.

Also, all species of hammerhead are endangered. Smooth hammerhead - the one on offer - are a vulnerable species. Wasn’t super impressed with their presence on the menu. You can’t just slap a sustainable sticker on something and...

It was crowded so we asked how long it would take. The cashier said 15-20 minutes since we already have a table reservation. We paid around 7 pm. The food started to arrive just before 8 pm. Funnily enough, the group that the shop gave half our table to got their food within half an hour - must be regular locals. Most of our time sitting at the shop was spent listening to them eat! Batter and seafood were ok. Chips were very floury - maybe freezer burned. Servings were small for the price. We had to make a sizeable dent in the chips because the prospect of waiting longer if we ordered more seafood was too painful to contemplate. We were informed that we had to share our table 5 minutes before our reservation appointment, which was made much earlier in the day. We were given some sauce as compensation. After 40 minutes of waiting, we asked whether our order had been forgotten. The cashier (same one) replied that our order was the next one but there were actually 3-4 orders served before ours. The waiter apologized perfunctorily for the delay when he finally brought the food. Our order was bog standard - Fishermen’s Basket and Classic Fish & Chips. Our one vacation dinner in Albany! Should have gone to Rustlers Steakhouse which we’d originally planned but were fooled by the “awards”. The whole experience was very surprising given the “bestest” hype. There’s a well-rated fish restaurant called Hooked On located 1 km away which might treat customers better. Or try the steak...

The food is awful!! The chips are awful tasting!!! My partner didn’t touch hers they were that bad. The fish was ok at best. The batter as other reviews have said was doughy, yellow and tasteless. We had a side salad of coleslaw but they must be placing paprika into the dressing because the first half of the salad you couldn’t taste it but then later it wasn’t mixed properly and there was why to much to enjoy the rest of the salad. We also had pineapple fritters. Its F!!KING awful. We ordered 2. We were asked if we would like cinnamon sugar with them. (Maybe the whole point of having fritter?) But we said yes. When we got the fitters there was a small mount of sugar on the plate. Maybe a 1/2 a tea spoon of sugar. We went back and asked for more. We then tried to eat them but the batter on them is way too salty and doughy like the fish. But why saltier than the batter on the fish. AWFUL!! The sh!! got left on the plate as well. Some dot points. -the dirty refilled condiment bottles on the tables with labels falling off. -All windows in the shop were dirty. -All seats for the tables where way to low. -There was an Asian style pickle on the table. It didnt smell or look appetising at all. -Black burnt bits on our fish. -Decor. Old and worn out to say the least. Needs a clean and a re paint. We have gone here many times over the past 3 years but will never be back again. Sorry I should of taken...