today we're in Te Tai Tokerau Northland and this video is going to be

all about seafood we're going coast to coast for seafood

feasting we are traveling from the top of the North Island of New Zealand

right down to the bottom of the South Island to find you the best

food we're journeying from the top to the bottom of Aotearoa New Zealand

taking you into the heart of our country's incredible food culture

this New Zealand food series will take you into the kitchens of New Zealand's

favorite restaurants behind the scenes of New Zealand's most

iconic foods onto boats and into farms and together

we'll gather and cook New Zealand's unique food this video

revolves around kaimoana seafood and kicks off at the top of Te Ika-a-

Māui the North Island we take you into a

family business producing mouth-watering smoked fish

marvel at the team's expert knife skills take a peek into the smokehouse

and learn how they create their delicious smoked fish before we head to an

unmissable fish and chip shop serving up local pātiki flounder caught

that morning you don't want to miss this series hit

subscribe and get ready for some mouth-watering food

I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate we hope you're hungry

let's eat

our first stop in the van this morning is for

smoked fish we've found a place that looks like absolute

smoked fish mecca it is called Apatu Aqua it is just up here in this beautiful

setting we've got the ocean out in front of us all this countryside this place

looks insane so let's go track it down

we've just jumped out of the van at Apatu Aqua and

the smell in the air is just redolent of smoked fish

it smells incredible let's get seeing what they've got uh smoking up

we've just met Hamish and Nichola who own this business

and Hamish is going to give us a little tour of the property

so Apatu Aqua smoke a whole range of fish

local fish as well as stuff that comes up from the south like salmon

and we've got here just tubs and tubs full of smoked fish so we've got

uh mānuka smoked trevally here is some salmon wings here Hamish

and I were just talking about how snacking on smoked salmon wings is like

eating chips they're so good there's marlin there's eel there's kingfish it's

like it is absolute heaven in here

I'm so excited so we're standing um right in front of the smoke house

so the fire is going in there so just trays and trays of fish the smell

wafting out of here is incredible so local wood is used to to smoke the

fish and it's hand smoked essentially it's a

labor of love the guys get up at 2 a.m to start stoking the fires and

then they use local mānuka so you probably know mānuka

from mānuka honey

so it gets lit and stoked at 2am and then it's a really slow process and

they just maintain that really gentle heat

they're turning the the fish every few hours so

the ones at the top will get um brought down to the bottom

so that you get this nice even smoking oh wow

honestly i can't tell you the beautiful gentle heat from the fire

is just transforming that fish i can't wait to eat this

so these guys smoke up to about 250 kilos of fish

every day in this smokehouse and there's all sorts so

there's um mullet there's snapper there's um what else was there Hamish?

so kahawai is that that fish that Thomas caught

up north in the first video that we posted in this series

and um Hamish was just saying that people can bring their own private

catches in to Apatu Aqua and then get it smoked up and

then take it home which is a really neat and special thing to do

so we're in the part where all the fish filleting and the brining happens this

is kahawai

in the tub's here and it's going to be

brining for a few hours and the guys are going to filet one up for us and show

us how it's done

tough heads these kahawai's eh

let's cut it down the backbone and slice it to the center bone

and then I just cut straight through it

and then pull out all the gutses and take the gills out

in there

it's really neat seeing the whole process of

being in the in the processing shed here where they're

cutting down the fish brining the fish uh deboning the fish over here

filleting up the snapper so there's so many different species they're

working with and obviously each species different process

they're just it's amazing how they let us come in here

and check it all out

Hamish has just cracked open a packet of the mānuka smoked salmon

wings oh man it feels beautiful just pull a bit of that out

okay oh wow

holy moly it literally melts in your mouth and it has the most

beautiful smoky flavor it's not overwhelming

it is just the perfect amount of smokiness and the

fish is so moist

so the guys here have a little shop where you can buy the product

straight from the smokehouse and so we have got ourselves a

huge box of smoked fish smoked treats that we're going to tuck into when we

get back to the van but if you want to be getting into this

stuff and you do you can come here and buy it straight

from the source which is really neat

back on the road after the most incredible

visit to Apatu Aqua I mean unreal seeing smoked fish on that sort of scale

and the team so passionate about what they're doing and

we have a bin full of different smoked fish

products so we're gonna go find some more

ingredients and we're gonna get into that for

lunch so let's get into this fish

we've driven a small ways up the road we've pulled over for lunch now so let's

check out what we've got so we've purchased

a bunch of stuff and they were super kind and threw in

a whole lot more for us so we have a bin filled with different products look

how much stuff we've got it's unreal so we've got some of the smoked

fish roe so that's a kahawai roe we've got the smoked salmon got some gemfish

that's a really interesting uh quite a deep sea fish big long fish

kingfish that looks beautiful the color in the kingfish

got a smoked piece of snapper snapper is a very popular fish here in New Zealand

they gave us some fresh snapper as well so they also have

a commercial fishing operation so they have a boat

fresh snapper so we've got some beautiful pieces of fresh snapper there

we've got the smoked eel so these gorgeous pieces of smoked eel

we've got the tuna like beautiful piece of

local tuna so that tuna is caught right up here in the North Island of New Zealand

we've got smoked fish pate that's made with kingfish

we've got smoked salmon and herb pate we've got smoked

eel pate and then in the bottom here is a whole mullet just sitting in the

bottom of this tub so that's wrapped up but a

whole whole entire mullet smoked we're gonna have to make some choices

about what we eat

we have laid up a spread for our lunch

now obviously we could not manage to eat all of that in one go so we've had to

pick a few things to have and we wanted to eat it very simply so

we popped into a local bakery we've got a loaf of bread so we're

keeping it very simple bread onions lemon salt and pepper and we're

going to eat the kingfish because that just looks

unreal that's a very prized fish here in New Zealand not something we get

to eat very often the snapper so the smoked snapper and snapper

is probably the most common caught fish in New Zealand and in

the North Island it's very very prevalent that is the most

targeted species and it is an amazing fish very popular

and we've got this whole mullet to have and this is a fish that neither of us

have ever eaten and a couple of the pates so

we've got the smoked eel pate and the smoked fish pate

so let's dive into this food

this is a feast fit for a king i'm very excited to try the mullet so the mullet

was the stuff that was um in the smokehouse at the when we were

there heaps of mullet heaps of it um and we've got the whole

mullet here so i've got some snapper

wow the fish just comes away beautifully the snapper is so sweet smokiness is not

overriding wow that is perfect and it's so nice and

dry they put a lot of effort in to getting the moisture away from the

fish so it's very now when i say dry i don't mean dry in a

bad way i mean dry just like smoke smoked fish should be mm-hmm that is

sensational the smokiness just infuses the fish in

such a beautiful way it's subtle but it's also really present

and the flesh is so moist so we've got this beautiful fresh bread

and we just want to load up with the bread and the fish and the onions the

lemon keep it very simple and i love this

about New Zealand these small producers and getting access to that and the

quality of stuff that they're churning out

i've got the kingfish here you could see how much

love and care went into the food and you can taste it

in the food it's often the way isn't it when something

tastes amazing it's because the story behind it

means a lot and the people have put time and love into making it you could tell

from the team they were awesome people very special people

okay truly unbelievable this is the smoked eel pate so the stuff

that Nichola makes and she said it's been flying out the door it's so popular we

were very excited to try this one because

eel is eaten a lot here in New Zealand, jump on in, on my cracker

eaten a lot by the Māori here in New Zealand so the indigenous

people of New Zealand very popular food and to have it in a pate

is pretty special so Nichola uses just local ingredients to make it it's got a

cream cheese base just stuff from her garden it's

so beautiful everything on this table tastes

amazing everything is championing the fish wow

unbelievable lunch

we've packed up the dining room so this is one of the joys of van life you can

eat and then your house is on the road so we're we're

moving locations we're going from the east coast of

the North Island now to the west coast and we're going to the Hokianga

harbour but it's still going to be all about seafood but a totally different

style we're going after fried seafood now so

there's a really neat looking fish and chip shop which does some real

specialties so we're heading over to the west coast to

the Hokianga for some seafood at a fish and chip shop

we've made it to our next stop and this is a beautiful little town right here on

the Hokianga harbour so a gorgeous harbour and the town is called Rawene

and here is the fish and chip shop that we want to visit so we've just parked up

gone for a walk around the town while we've waited for them to

open up and it's such a neat little town there's a lot of history here

and a neat little thing they have actually is a car ferry which takes you over to

the other side of the Hokianga so all these people are lined up waiting to

get on the car ferry to take them over so you don't have to go for a

massive drive right around the head of the harbour but the fish and chip shop's

meant to be open right now so let's go check it out

so there's the fish and chip shop up here they've opened up they've got the

big open flags outside now and this one here is what we're after so

we want to have the flounder and chips oh yeah

the thing you have to eat in New Zealand is of course fish and chips fish and

chips are one of our national dishes but here in Hokianga what you need to

order is flounder and chips the Hokianga harbour

has a lot of flounder flounders is a flat fish and it comes in fresh off the boat

from a local guy who catches it they bring it up to the fish and chip shop

and fry it up so that's what we're going to order Hokianga flounder with chips

awesome, two flounders? um well how water how big are they

so they're fresh and um fresh as

this is a very neat very classic fish and chip

shop so you've got the old sort of school tables

um all the old cutlery but the best bit about this fish and chip shop is the

library so down here is the the library returns for the town so the library

and fish and chip shop all in one place it's very neat little shop and it's a

super cold day so you walk into a fish and chip shop

with the fryer going smells good it's warm can't wait for

this flounder and chips

so the flounder is right here and it's a flat fish so it lives on the bottom of

the ocean so has a little eye on side of the head

it's been floured battered up straight into the hot oil bubbling away

chips are on the go super golden bring it on

how good does the flounder and chips look so beautifully

golden the smell is unreal we've got the classic New Zealand Wattie's tomato sauce

to go with it we've got the pile of chips underneath we've got the flounder

on top and a slice of lemon so i'm going to

drench it in the lemon man that is a juicy wedge of lemon get the lemon all

over the flounder and let's just crack right on in

oh look how it comes away the fish is insanely soft

oh oh wow oh man it's so hot

so delicate that fish oh wow super delicate

very very sweet chip

perfect chips golden small crunch on the outside pillowy in

the inside but it's all about this flounder i'm

just gonna rip right in with my hands oh my god it's so hot

whoa it's hot okay

oh flounder is a very special fish it's soft and sweet and delicate

it's just beautiful to eat and the fact that it's come from there

so they've they get the fish right from the harbour the fisherman who

gets it lands the fish right here at the boat ramp

so from the harbour to here is about 10 meters

look how moist it is you can just see as i pull that off with my fingers

how moist the fish is it's so fresh just completely flaking falling to bits so

um oh and the batter is super dry so there's no stodginess in the batter it's

a very special place to have this flounder and

chips as well because there's a lot of history in this little town

uh Kupe who is the first Polynesian explorer to come here so the ancestor of

all the Māori so the indigenous people of New Zealand

landed in the Hokianga harbour and here near this town

and this was one of the first European settlements in New Zealand as well so

there's a lot of history on both sides of the scale there

and man it is a special special place to have a meal like this

flounder straight from the harbour expertly cooked

sweet juicy delicious fish and sitting here which is unreal and i

must say thank you very much to the staff for letting us film

and also letting us sit here this is actually their private smoko

area so they've let us come out sit out here so we can enjoy the view while

we're filming so super thankful to them for this amazing food and this amazing

scenery what a way to wrap up what has been a huge seafood day here in

Northland going from coast to coast so the east coast all the

way here to the west coast to the Hokianga to finish with this

flounder and chips i mean what a day of seafood unbelievable