Phil’s Seafood
Restaurant: Phil’s Seafood
Address: 6285 Quinpool Road, Halifax
Date: December 18, 2009
Fish: Haddock
Cost: $8.49
Phil’s is one of the most famous fish and chips joints in Halifax, regularly placing 1st or 2nd in the Coast’s annual Best of Food surveys… so it goes without saying that our expectations were quite high for this review.
In spite of the fact numerous people consider Phil’s the best fish and chips around… it’s easy to say our experience was altogether different. The restaurant… cold, the fish… watery… the overall experience… disappointing. While were were dining, there were just a couple of other customers there as well. You could have shot a cannon down the middle of that cold restaurant and not come within 10 feet of anybody. We found this very unusual considering this is supposed to be one of the preeminent fish and chips joints in the city. And before anybody uses the Christmas season as an excuse for the poor customer turnout… we don’t buy that. We’ve seen places like John’s Lunch packed to gunnels (as usual) on a Friday night just before Christmas.
In our opinion, Phil’s Seafood is a place people love to rave about how great the fish and chips are… but it’s based on memories from days gone by since they haven’t dined there in years. And those who currently dine there and consider it the best… do yourself a favour and check out some of the our Highly Recommended list. Seriously… you’ll thank us for it.
Fish and Chips Score: 63
FCP Review Crew
Rachel’s Thoughts
Fish was a bit rubbery and the batter was just ok. Very good fries (home-cut). The tarter sauce tasted home-made but a tiny bit sweet for my liking. Very good coleslaw… home-made.
Fish
Batter
Fries
Grease
Portion/Value
Condiments
Rachel’s Final Score: 66
Poochie’s Thoughts
I thought the fish and batter was quite tasteless. There was water accumulating on the plate underneath the fish, making it a bit soggy. The fish was not greasy at all, and the batter was nice and crispy (except for the soggy bottom) but had no flavour whatsoever.
While the fries were home-cut, they were lukewarm at best, and kind of blah. Had they been hot they might have been quite good… but they were served lukewarm. The coleslaw was home-made and quite nice… the tarter sauce was also home-made and just average.
Fish
Batter
Fries
Grease
Portion/Value
Condiments
Poochie’s Final Score: 61
Minnie’s Thoughts
The fish was kind of watery and the batter had no taste! The home-made fries were yummy as well as the home-made coleslaw. The tarter sauce was just ok.
Also, although it had nothing to do with the fish… I found the restaurant quite cold… turn the heat up a bit!
Fish
Batter
Fries
Grease
Portion/Value
Condiments
Minnie’s Final Score: 60
Skippy’s Thoughts
The fish was more watery than greasy. It was just… there. Kinda tasteless. The batter was super-thin (but over-cooked), and it seemed very non-porous, which could account for how it kept the grease out and the watery-ness in.
The fries were supposedly hand-cut, which I like… but lukewarm, which I do not.
I’ve heard about this place, and was looking forward to eating here… disappointing.
Fish
Batter
Fries
Grease
Portion/Value
Condiments
Skippy’s Final Score: 65
Benjamin… as you can tell by our review… we completely disagree with your assessment of Phil’s fare. It was so not good for us.
Fantastic fish and chips. So good. So so good.
I wouldn’t go back to Phil’s even if they offered their fish ‘n chips for free – I’ve given this place three tries and each was worst than the last.
I’d also like to add that Phil’s uses a generic ketchup rather than Heinz – using generic ketchup and old fat is not the way to keep in business.
Annie Pants… your assessment is exactly our findings as well. If a person sat down and sampled from Fredies in Bayers Lake and Phil’s side-by-side… they would be shocked at the difference.
Shocked.
For the life of me I can’t fathom why Phil’s always places so high on the Coast reader’s poll.
Fish and chips were fried in old grease turning the fish an unhealthy dark brown, the fries oily and limp – the fish was very wet, tasteless, not light and flakey – it was also way overpriced for a one piece order, total rip off. Terrible – terrible – terrible.
Long Time F&C Lover… we were surprised the other day when we averaged out the cost for a 2 piece fish and chips from our reviews. It averaged out to $10.45, which was higher than I thought it was going to be.
Note… we didn’t include IWK in that average because they charged no tax and it was more of a whimsical review.
One thing to keep in mind is that so far we’ve reviewed more “restaurant style” fish and chips as opposed to the classic fish and chips – and the prices are always higher. You will notice on our “The Entire List” page that the classic F&C places, John’s Lunch, Fredies, Phils, are in the $7-$9 range.
As for the whole “Coast Readers Poll” thing… it’s hard to explain. So far we’ve check out two of the three which are always rated the top… John’s Lunch and Phil’s Seafood. We love John’s Lunch… their haddock tips are simply the best deep fried fish in the city… and as you already know, we didn’t like Phil’s at all.
We wonder if people are voting on reputation regardless of whether they dine there or not… or if there are only a small number of votes cast… or if some people simply don’t know what good, fresh F&C tastes like.
An example would be a lady who commented on our “Classic Fish & Chips” review. She agreed that the food was simply awful, but it had been highly recommended to her by others. I simply can’t imagine what kind of tastebuds a person has to think Classic’s fish was fresh and tasty.
She was glad to learn from our reviews that for a few more pennies she could have a simply divine meal of F&C just two doors down at Jamieson’s.
Poochie is right. It only took two visits to the Quinpool Road location (after having excellent F&Cs at Purcells Cove Rd location for years) to give up on Phils forever. Had take out…which was never a problem before. The Fish batter was soggy and the fries were in a grey clump…as if they had been fried in lukewarm oil.
Re: annual Coast food polls results…let the buyer beware!
On another point, based on your posted reviews, I think F&Cs are way over-priced by most providers. There is more risk than reward in ordering fish and chips, in my opinion.
Tim… I don’t doubt you have had (and continue to have) great experiences eating at Phil’s. It always seems to finish in the top three of the Coast’s food poll.
However, we have heard from a number of other people who have told us that Phil’s was never the same after the move to Quinpool. To be honest, other than reading it in the Coast, you are the first person I’ve interacted with – if you can call this interaction :-) – who highly recommends them.
We took it as a bad sign when there was absolutely nobody in the restaurant on a Friday evening when we were eating there. Most other good fish and chip joints we hit on a Friday night are jam packed with people wanting to eat there.
Our expectations were high going in there, but, wow… it really wasn’t good at all. It was very soggy on the bottom… very soggy. Absolutely no taste to the fish whatsoever.
Perhaps we caught them on a bad night or something, but the reality is every customer that comes in is a food critic so a good restaurant has worry about consistency as well. Perhaps they were unlucky and we caught them on a bad night when they were breaking in a new cook… or were on the verge of firing an old cook… but whatever was going on, it wasn’t good that evening.
I highly doubt we’ll get to them for a second chance. There are too many other places we want to review, and to be honest, our experience was so not good we have no great desire to go back.
Wow! This could hardly be more different from our experience. My wife and I have eaten at Phil’s at least 50 times over the years, including before he opened the Quinpool location and always loved it. We are very particular about our fish and much prefer his style of very thin crispy coating with virtually no grease. I would strongly recommend that you try this one again!