Leacroft Chinese Takeaway is a neighbourhood takeaway shop on Leacroft Street in Bishopdale, Christchurch, doing the double duty Kiwis love best: a full Chinese takeaway menu alongside a proper fish and chips counter and a long burger list. It is the kind of place where one order can span honey BBQ fried rice, a scoop of chips and a fish burger.
The Chinese side of the menu runs through numbered classics — sixteen fried noodles, six chow meins, ten fried rices, seven foo yung eggs, chicken, beef and pork dishes, and soups including chicken corn, tom yum and curry laksa. Chilli lovers get clear pointers, with dishes like Hokkien mee, nasi goreng and gong bao chicken flagged hot, and some dishes (lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork) are listed as served without rice.
The fish-and-chips side covers battered and crumbed hoki and cod, blue cod, oysters, scallops and the full deep-fried line-up — hot dogs, potato fritters, wontons, mini spring rolls and even a deep fried Mars bar. Homemade patties, rolls and a burger board running from plain to Monster fill things out, and Special Packs bundle chips, fish, hot dogs and bites for groups.
Ordering is set up for modern life: preorder online for pickup, pay securely by Visa, Mastercard or PayPal, and browse the site in English or Chinese. Doors open 11am to 8:30pm Tuesday through Sunday, with a dinner-only start of 4:30pm on Mondays.
On Leacroft Street in Bishopdale, Christchurch, Leacroft Chinese Takeaway runs one of those menus that could only come from a New Zealand neighbourhood takeaway: it begins at honey BBQ pork fried noodles and doesn't stop until deep fried Mars bars, giant burgers and Pacific oysters. Chinese takeaway is the headline act — the shop bills itself as 'chinese & Fish and Chips' — but this is a single kitchen that happily fields an order for sweet and sour pork, a scoop of chips and a bacon burger all at once.
The Chinese half of the menu is numbered from No.1 to No.61, and it reads like a greatest-hits collection of takeaway Chinese, Kiwi style. Fried noodles come sixteen ways, from satay chicken and honey chicken to Thai sweet chili beef and a Bami Goreng with pork and chicken. Chow mein follows in six versions — chicken, steak, pork, prawn, BBQ pork and a combination. Fried rice runs to ten options, including Yang Zhou with pork and prawn and a nasi goreng built on chicken and sambal sauce. There are seven foo yung eggs, all in large size only, plus dedicated chicken, beef and pork sections covering the classics: lemon chicken, sweet and sour chicken, chicken with cashew nuts, gong bao chicken, beef with black bean sauce and pork with seasonal vegetables.
Spice is flagged honestly. Hokkien mee with pork and shrimp, combination fried noodles with chilli, nasi goreng, gong bao chicken and beef with chilli all carry a hot marker, so heat-seekers know where to point. Dishes that arrive without rice — lemon chicken, sweet and sour chicken, sweet and sour pork — say so on the board.
The top sellers show what regulars order: No.31 Honey BBQ Fried Rice with pork, No.32 Honey Chicken Fried Rice and No.56 Sweet & Sour Pork. Soups are an easy way in, with chicken corn, chicken noodle tom yum and a curry laksa with chicken and prawn all on the list, while lemon fish and sweet and sour fish bridge the two halves of the menu.
The other half of the shop is pure fish-and-chips counter. The seafood line covers battered and crumbed hoki and cod, blue cod, fish bites, fried mussels, squid rings, scallops, crab sticks and Pacific oysters by the half dozen or dozen. The deep-fried list runs from the essentials — chips, hot dogs, battered onion sausage, potato fritters, wontons by the half dozen — to homemade onion rings, jam raps and a deep fried Mars bar for dessert.
Homemade is its own category: meat, chicken, steak-onion, bacon-corn and cheese-onion patties, spring and curry rolls, corn patties, small serves of fried rice and noodles, and hash bites by the dozen. The burger board stretches from a plain hamburger through cheese, bacon, egg, fish and crumbed chicken breast versions to a Hawaiian stacked with meat, bacon and cheese, a Giant with double meat and egg, and the Monster at the top of the range.
For groups there are four Special Packs, A through D, bundling scoops of chips with hot dogs, fish, fish bites, potato fritters, hash bites and chicken bites in ever-bigger quantities — the D Pack alone carries four scoops of chips and four fish. Soft drinks come by the can or in 1.5L and 2.25L bottles.
Everything is pickup, and the shop is built for preordering online: choose a pickup time, pay securely with Visa, Mastercard or PayPal, and the food is ready when you arrive. The ordering site runs in English or Chinese, a small touch that makes the menu easy to browse for Christchurch's Chinese-speaking community.
Hours follow a takeaway rhythm: 11am to 8:30pm Tuesday through Sunday, with Monday running dinner only from 4:30pm. That makes it an easy stop after work on a Monday and a lunch-and-dinner option every other day of the week.
What makes Leacroft work is that it never asks you to choose. Tonight can be chicken chow mein and a curry laksa; Friday can be blue cod, scallops and a deep fried Mars bar; the family order can be a C Pack with a Monster burger on the side. One counter, one kitchen and the whole New Zealand takeaway playbook — that is the Leacroft Street proposition.