Hayz at the Anchorage

Rating: 1

We ate dinner here in February 2022.

Half roast mutton bird with stuffing, blueberry jus, seasonal vegetables, and mash
Ribs with salad and chips

Dining options are limited in Bluff. In fact, unless you want to eat a toastie and chips while being called a Covid Nazi at the local anti-vax hotspot, The Eagle, Hayz at the Anchorage is your only choice.

This restaurant embraces local delicacies. Along with the expected Bluff Oysters, there are also paua wontons, sweetbreads, whitebait, and mutton bird. Feeling adventurous, and keen on some local fare, the Fee-Rex decided to try mutton bird for the first time. It turns out that mutton bird, which is a sea bird in the shearwater family, is hella fishy. Even the smell is that of fish, and quite strong. It does look like mutton, which is perhaps where it gets the name, but it tastes like fish.

The flavour of the mutton bird has not been considered as part of the rating. We went out on a limb, and the restaurant can’t be penalised because we ordered something that just wasn’t us. That said, the rest of the meal was pretty bad. The stuffing was plain, and very dry. Other than a few (cold) blueberries on the plate, the jus was neither to be seen nor tasted. The mash was the best part, and the “seasonal” vegetables, the worst. We didn’t realise that boiled frozen vege mix had a season! For $40, in Bluff no less, we expect fresh vegetables.

The ribs were dry, although they did come with quite a nice sauce, and plenty of it, which did help some. The ribs were sitting in top of a big ol’ pile of chips, which ordinarily we are all for, but there were some problems with these chips. You know when you’re hung over on a Sunday morning, and your pour your McCain frozen chips into a roasting dish and slam them in the oven after finally falling out of bed just after 11am, and then you are ready for chips way before they are ready for you, so you get them out, half done, not crispy at all in fact a little soggy, those chips are full of sadness, and after eating them, so are you. That’s exactly what these chips were like, and frankly our disappointment is immeasurable. There was a little bit of salad on the side which was reasonable, but it was as much as afterthought as every salad that’s ever been on the side of a plate of ribs and chips has ever been.