Harbord Fish & Chips Toronto

On the way to Royal Ontario Museum, we passed by Harbord Fish & Chips which is on every list of the Best Fish & Chips in Toronto.



Located at Harbord Street in this charming little whitewashed brick shack, hanging out at the benches outside Harbord Street Fish & Chips is a rite of passage of almost every U of Toronto student (it is safe to say).



The venerable university founded in 1827, Canada's biggest and best is walking distance from the 3 decades old fish & chips institution.



Congratulations U of T Class of 2019.



Harbord Fish & Chips has a no frills kitchen and take out counter inside. If you order take away, they still wrap your greasy order in parchment paper and old newspaper. Charming.



If you "dine in", your order is served on a tray which you take outside and eat on the couple of much coveted picnic tables and benches in the summer.

I didn't see the old couple Ada and Joe Chou, whom I saw when I was here two years ago. Heard they retired and the shop has new owners now.



The menu is limited. There's only halibut and haddock. Okay... they have shrimps. But, no cod. Prices are very reasonable. 



We ordered a piece of haddock (CDN9.95+) and a slab of halibut (price CND12.49+). The pieces of fish encased in golden brown shell were huge - I think Harbord serves the best value for money fish & chips for the price in Toronto. This joint has fed countless hungry U of T students on a tight budget. We skipped the chips because we wanted to ration out our starch intake over the coming meals of the day's food trail.

The tartar sauce came in factory made plastic sachets - they tasted okay but we know it is mainly synthesised flavourings and preservatives.



The crisp crumbly golden brown beer batter was pretty thick. We can hear the brittle crust break when pressed with the plastic knife. We felt a bit of soda on our tongue. The crust became quite slick with tacky grease when the batter cooled down towards the end of the meal. It took us a while to finish it because of the sheer size of the fish.

Haddock meat is delicate (the fish being from the same family as cod). The white meat was flaky, soft, even had signs of a bit of mushiness. It was clean tasting with hints of underlying sweetness of fresh fish. Think of it as a milder version of cod.

It's nice. We used the plastic tartar sauce to boost flavours a little. Even popped back into the shack to get a squeeze bottle of ketchup 😂



Same thick crisp beer battered crust encasing the halibut.



The white meat was firmer and barely moist (perhaps from over cooking), less flaky than haddock. Flavour was sweeter, sweeter than haddock. But, we still needed the tartar sauce and ketchup.



It was a substantial meal even without the chips. We were full enough, for the fish in our tum-tums to get in the way of our other meals for the rest of the day 😄 If we come back, we will just get the haddock.



Nearby Royal Ontario Museum is a family friendly place with a wide range of natural history and cultural artefacts from around the world. There is something for every interest.

I like this truly tried and tasted list of Toronto's best fish and chips by blogger Food Crawl. I haven't tried every one in his list yet though. Save it for next trip 😄

What is Johor Kaki doing in Toronto? 👈 click



Restaurant name: Harbord Fish & Chips
Address: 147 Harbord St (at Albert Jackson Ln), Toronto, ON M5S 1H4, Canada
GPS: 43°39'43.9"N 79°24'22.8"W 🌐 43.662185, -79.406330
Nearest TTC (subway): Bathurst
Tel: +1 416-925-2225
Hours: 11:30am - 9:00pm

Date visited: 14 Jul 2019