There were plenty of disbelievers when George Dimitrios began offering deep-fried Mars bars at his Bondi Beach seafood shop. Now, he says, people can't get enough of them.

Mr. Dimitrios said: We had banana fritters and pineapple fritters but wanted something exotic, so we experimented with deep frying different types of chocolate bars and the Mars bar was the best.

Although shops on the central coast and in Victoria have copied the idea, he said his Bondi Surf Seafoods was the only outlet approved by Mars. Mars has given us full support, he said. They did laboratory tests for bacteria levels, then gave us the go-ahead.

The bars are dipped into coconut batter, pre-cooked in a low-temperature oil then deep fried. They cost $4.00, while an "unimproved" Mars bar sells for $.

While customers were sceptical at first, the novelty caught on and the shop now sells up to about 50 a day.

So what does a battered and fried Mars bar taste like ?. It tastes like a battered and fried Mars bar.