Eating Auckland

Caffe Latte, Point Chevalier

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:45:00 +0000

It's rare, but sometimes the food isn't the be all and end all. I've struggled with this post because, much as I really want to be purist and objective about it all, on this occasion I really can't.

Caffe Latte is about the only restaurant in Point Chevalier (if you discount all the horrible places around Point Chev shops), and whilst it's named like a coffee shop, it's actually a genuinely great local Italian restaurant. It's been there for ages, so I'm told, and it feels warm and welcoming, the sort of place where thousands of people have had a good time in the past. On the Friday night that the girls and I went, it was packed, and the two waitresses and the one chef dealt with the (small) crowd with friendly, efficient ease.

It's BYO, but they do have a small selection of wines and beers on offer, including Menebrea, a superb Italian lager which I've not seen outside of Europe. It's worth the visit just for that, frankly.

The menu is classic 'local Italian restaurant', and feeling the vibe I started with the beef carpaccio, which was really very good except for a smear of an oddly sweet, syrupy liquid on the side of the plate - initially I thought this might have been balsamic, but a sickly sweet sugary tang suggested maybe something less suitable. The main course, a great-sounding penne alla salsiccie, was pretty weird if I'm honest, with what seemed to be chunks of pretty workaday pork sausage lurking in an overseasoned, over-reduced tomato sauce which suggested powdered stock (a suspicion backed up by the open bucket of same clearly visible in the kitchen). Still, the pasta was perfectly cooked, and whilst it wasn't quite as expected, most of it disappeared.

So for a few moments there I was a little downhearted, but really I was still thoroughly happy. Sure, properly made stock would have helped, perhaps a little fennel in the sausages, but somehow we all came away smiling. This was weird.

I honestly don't know. Perhaps it was the service - friendly, welcoming, honest and relaxed. Maybe that the food wasn't pretentious, overdone, or willingly challenging (NZ chefs seem to love 'challenging' our palates with frankly bizarre concoctions). Perhaps it was the excellent pricing, the lively buzz, the fact that it's walking distance from our house... perhaps all of these.

Quite simply, this is exactly what you want from a local restaurant to which you'll return time and time again. You'd no more complain about the food here than you would in your friend's kitchen (and it's a damn sight better than some I've had there...). I count myself lucky to be living nearby, and it's taught me that sometimes you don't eat out just for what's on the plate.

We'll be back.

Caffe Latte

149 Point Chevalier Road

Point Chevalier

Auckland

(09) 846 5303

Sal's NY Pizza, CBD

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:32:00 +0000

On one of my first trips to New Zealand, several years ago, I was introduced to Hell Pizza. At that point I was considering whether moving over here was a good idea or not, and this appalling experience chalked up one point under the header 'con'. When they opened up on North End Road in Fulham some months later, I went along to see if I was still right to be appalled. I was.

So beyond a good experience at GPK, I'd pretty much written off pizza over here. Some countries just can't do certain things - Spain can't do bacon, for example. I'd quietly mourn the lack of a decent pizza from time to time, and I'd generally have to do something like take in the view from the top of Mount Eden to compensate.

Now, all I have to do is to head to Commerce Street, where an unassuming shop in long line of equally unassuming places sells some of the best pizza I've had in a long, long time. Sal's make much of their NY heritage, and rightly so - from the doughy, yeasty base through the phenomenal sauce and the restrained, focused toppings, it's a brilliant pizza. I'm told that actual New Yorkers have been known to give it the seal of approval, too.

Authenticity aside, it's an experience not to be missed. $28 seems like a lot for a takeaway pizza, until they hand you all 18" of it - a foot-and-a-half of pepperoni-covered pizza heaven. This is more than enough for two, plus lunches the following day, where it stands up just as well (and to be honest you'll have been thinking about it all morning).

They do $5 slices as well, and those in the know have told me that it's worth getting down there when turnover's high, at lunchtimes. Their topping list is thankfully restrained - no jam, chicken, apricots, avocado here - so if you're more familiar with the likes of Hell's 'thirty toppings and they all taste the same' variants, get yourself down to Sal's and find out what pizza actually tastes like.

Oh, and if you order within the CBD they'll deliver to you on a Segway.

Sal's NY Pizza

8 Commerce St

Auckland

(09) 379 7257

The Long Room, Ponsonby

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:03:00 +0000

Is Ponsonby a bit tedious? Something in me wants to think so based on awful places like Estasi, and the general type of clientele that always seems to be stealing the oxygen around those parts, but recently a few things have made me reconsider. The excellently simple $25 lunch at GPK, for example, and the ever-brilliant Landreth & Co seem to stand out from the pretense and PR fluff; down-to-earth, quality places where the food comes before the hair, so to speak.

I'd been a bit wary about the Long Room, as it opened a few months ago to a bit of a fanfare, and promised to be a sort of smaller version of Sale Street, and so far so yawn, really. Wandering past it on a Sunday though with an Aussie in tow, I thought we might as well give it a go. Since we were there. In Ponsonby. And Landreth & Co was like, a mile away.

And you know what, it's not that bad. Spacious, pleasantly gloomy inside, nicely airy outside and totally open between the two spaces, it seems bigger (longer?) than it is and although you're right on Ponsonby Road, it doesn't quite seem so close. The menu holds no real surprises, the usual smattering of modern Euro, nonspecific Asian and so on, but that's sort of why you come to a bar for food, right?

Prices initially look on the steep side for this sort of place, with mains up to around $28, and something in you begins to wonder what on earth they're playing at, until your waitress cheerily informs you that the starters will be plenty for most people at lunch so probably not to bother with the mains. At $17ish, that's much more palatable. Service here is like this; friendly and honest, if somewhat over-attentive. When you come back to the table and see that neither of us have touched our menus since last time you asked, do you really need to ask if we're ready to order again?

Anyway, the food. I was feeling a bit random (ok, hungover) and so ordered the Grilled Corn Risotto w' Chipotle Hot Smoked Salmon & Jalapeno Creme Fraiche. The Aussie took the waitress's point about the main portion sizes as a physical challenge, and went for the grilled lamb loin. All the artful presentation in chefdom couldn't hide the fact that this was simply an obscenely whopping chunk of meat the size of a baby's arm, grilled a good medium as requested and surrounded by a flotilla of kumara gnocchi and green beans. All pronounced good; although I suspect sheer quantity might have taken the shine off the quality here.

Mine was a great little lunch dish; the risotto lively and flavoursome, looser and more pilaf-like than risotto-like, but more palatable and appropriate for it. The salmon was moist and tender, with the flavour of the chilli lending a subtly tangy smokiness to the fish. A couple of beers and an average coffee finished the meal off.

So it's arguably a bit pricey, but unless you're a horse or an Aussie with something to prove, you can probably get away with sticking with a starter. My only criticism is that, in this part of Auckland, there's a lot like this, and if your USPs are purely that you're in a good spot and you're a few dollars more expensive than your four or five competitors, you'll have to do a lot more than that to stay alive. Still, if you're passing...

The Long Room
114 Ponsonby Road
Auckland

+64 9 360 8803

www.longroom.co.nz

Rikka, Freeman's Bay

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:31:00 +0000

Japanese food is a bit of a closed book to me. I've long suspected that it's once of those cuisines where as you go up the scale in price, it's average (to a Western palate) until you get right to the very top, where it's astounding. Burgundy is a good comparison from a wine perspective - if you're going to bother with it at all, pay a decent amount for it and really get to grips with it.

So at one end of the Japanese scale, New Zealand has St Pierre's Sushi, an appalling affront to everything good about food. St Pierre's outlets can be found everywhere good food is not, and generally serve shockingly bad sushi of many varieties. I last ate at St Pierre's in February 2009, and since then have not been able to touch Japanese food. The memory of that slimy, greasy scrap of salmon stuck to a huge wodge of utterly vile vinegary rice was just too much.

This has all changed now though. I returned from honeymoon a few weeks back, and to kick off our first weekend together in Auckland as husband and wife, the missus and I headed to Rikka. I chose this place for two reasons: firstly as I needed to erase that awful memory from my mind and return to this cuisine on good terms. Secondly as I had a terrible craving for sake. Rikka has 'SAKE BAR' written outside in big letters, so it seemed like a good bet.

It's a really pleasant place to be, Rikka. The all-wood interior is warmly lit, welcoming and comfortable, and on the Friday evening we were there it was lively enough without being overbearing. The staff are excellent, knowledgeable, courteous and attentive. The views across Victoria Park Market are remarkable in the setting sun. All of this is secondary though: the food's the thing here.

After a preparatory Asahi and a peruse of the menu, I decided to do away with structure and just order whatever we felt like, and so it went something like this:

The first round kicked off with some steamed pork dim sum, fat, slightly wobbly and flavoursome, with a soy dipping sauce so good it was almost drunk straight from the dish. Also on the table was some crispy fried chicken, strips of breast meat delicately battered and fried, with similarly good sauces to dunk in. A gently warmed flask of sake worked beautifully alongside.

The second round was the sashimi round. I love good sashimi, much more than sushi (all that rice? Dull), and this was Good Sashimi. The first batch was the salmon, divided into two small piles denoting slightly different cuts. Fresh, firm and gleaming it was, and expertly presented, and my word was it ever good. There's a purity to the flavour of really fresh, well handled fish that defies explanation, and this was about as good as I've had.

Until the second batch of sashimi, that is. I'd spotted the magical word 'Toro' on the specials board, and I'd recognised this as the super-premium tuna belly sashimi that I'd only ever heard spoken about in hushed, reverent tones, and subsequently ordered four pieces. There are a few food experiences that really stick in my mind: my first properly cooked veal cut (in France), a stunning seafood pasta dish (in Sardinia), my first rare steak (England), and oysters fresh out of the sea (France again) to name a few. This ranks with those - a flavour so delicate it was almost ethereal, a persistent, lifted 'sea' character, a clear tuna flavour but much, much more refined than I've ever experienced before. We sipped our sake in silence, gazing into the middle distance with unfocused eyes.

The end of the sake jolted us into awareness again, and with the arrival of the third round came another bottle, chilled this time. The round in question consisted of a 'Triple Delight' of teryaki; salmon, chicken and beef, presented on their own little pedestals within a miniature garden arrangement. Amazing stuff. To be honest, they were all amazing, as were the tempura vegetables we'd ordered as an accompaniment, but after the Toro everything else was an afterthought.

After this, a bottle of frozen sake served as dessert, the slush entertainingly worked out of the bottle with a chopstick, and after a couple of excellent Japanese coffees we were on our way. We will be going back, that's for sure, and I wholly recommend you do the same, whether that Toro's on the menu or not.

It's been a week now, and I can still remember each and every flavour, clear and distinct. This was by far the best meal I've had in Auckland, without a shadow of a doubt.

Sake Bar Rikka
19 Drake Street
Freemans Bay
Auckland

+64 (0) 9 377 8239

I'm back

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:56:00 +0000

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted that it's been a while since my last entry, and there's really no excuse for this. If I'm honest there's a number of things at work here, partly that I got married a few weeks ago, which took up a bit of time, and partly that I became a bit sick of constantly writing about disappointing experiences, of which I'd had several. I had become bored, disillusioned and generally a bit apathetic.

This has changed. Last weekend I visited a restaurant that's restored my faith in Auckland's ability to turn out spectacular food, and I'll post a review on that shortly. In the meantime, however, a brief run-down on eateries of note from the past few months:

Satya, Ponsonby
Phenomenal South Indian food, defiantly authentic and richly, powerfully flavoured. This is astonishing stuff for Auckland, where it's a challenge to get a decent curry. Everything I've had from here has been great, but a personal favourite is their Vindaloo. The thing about this dish is that in most restaurants it's the 'physical challenge' choice; existing only as a vehicle for searing chilli heat and generally ordered as a way of 'impressing' someone. Typically though, a real Vindaloo has a robust flavour that's slightly sour (sour as in tamarind), reasonably hot but not aggressively so, and this one's spot on.

Grasshopper, CBD
Disappointing Thai. Limp, lacklustre, devoid of soul or interest. Dodgy furnishings, pallid flavours, avoid this like the plague. Unusual to find a Thai restaurant in New Zealand where every single aspect of it disappoints.

Big Al's Coffee and Sandwich, CBD
When the weather turns cooler again, Big Al will bring back the hot beef rolls, and for me that can't happen soon enough. Slow-cooked and pulled beef, stuffed into a baguette with gherkins, onions and horseradish. It's at the upper end of the sandwich price spectrum, but it's oh so very very good. So far, there is nothing to compare for lunch in the CBD.

Malinee Thai, Point Chevalier
Finding that you live within walking distance from a great takeaway is one of life's real pleasures - it's a bit like winning a food lottery or something. Particularly in Point Chevalier, which despite being a lovely corner of Auckland is a bit of a food desert (thank the Lord for the Westmere Butcher). Malinee Thai serves up well-priced, fresh, vibrantly tasty food, and they're more than happy to play 'hurt the white boy' if you're ballsy enough to ask for it 'thai hot'. Stand out dish has to be the prawn spring rolls, each one a massive fat prawn, covered in a mysterious but delicious stuff, wrapped in a crispy parcel. Tremendous.

Frankie's Wurstbude, Auckland Central

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:32:00 +0000

Have you ever picked up a plate of food, momentarily felt your arm drop slightly with the unexpected weight, and thought for a second "I'm going to be about this much heavier in about 10 minutes". Amazing, slightly worrying at the same time.

I love big food. There's a part of me that really warms to honest, hearty, unapologetic dishes, and the sausage features in many such plates. With mash, in a bun, in batter, in a stew... all good rib-sticking, stout fare. Attacking a serious sausage dish for a working lunch is not for the fainthearted.

And so it was with some trepidation that the salesman and I headed to Frankie's around 1pm. We had no idea what we were in for, and so I foolishly ordered a chilli dog with a Bavarian bratwurst. He, something equally sausagy with mash etc. When the server passed it to me over the counter, all attempts at masculine nonchalance failed me and I think the words 'Good... God...' may have passed my trembling lips. I was about to gain a good few kilos.

This thing was a clear foot long, with a definite... girth. Loaded with a portion of chilli that wouldn't look out of place served on its own. Topped with a generous handful of cheese, if those hands belonged to the BFG. Served atop a hotdog bun which had been literally flattened by the burden. I took a deep breath, rearranged a few internal organs to make space, and got involved.

'Good' doesn't somehow do this brat justice. Anything more expressive would seem somehow... wrong - you know what I mean. I'll settle for 'damn good', and that it was - juicy, densely meaty and remarkably subtly flavoured, covered in a great, rich chilli with a generous capsaicin whack, and cheese. Just cheese. Lots of it. I loved every single mouthful and yes, I managed the lot.

Get hungry, go there, order big and eat it all. If you love food, you'll love Frankie's.

Frankie's Wurstbude

Elliott Stables

Shop 4, 41 Elliott St

Auckland Central

+64 (0) 9 365 2700

Dida's Wine & Tapas Lounge, Ponsonby

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:38:00 +0000

Weekend lunches are one of the best things ever. I have been known to make them last all day, starting shortly after a summary piece of toast and coffee, and finishing with a G&T to mark the passing of lunch into dinner. I like long weekend lunches so much, I almost dislike weekday work lunches because they always fall so far short by comparison.

Dida's is a good place for lunch on the weekend. It's on my way to work, and spitefully reminds me as I pass it twice a day that lunch today will be a disappointment. So tempted, I vowed to turn as much of Sunday as possible over to Dida's. Not without a hint of trepidation, though, as I've long been a fan of Spanish cooking, and have visited Dida's excellent delicatessen a few times in the past, so expectations were high.

And they were met. Laid-back, friendly service delivered an array of superb dishes, and the afternoon slipped by with quiet chatter and bold, complex flavours. Stuffed artichokes were tender, rich mouthfuls; pork meatballs were moist and paprika-scented; accompanying Manchego and charcuterie were both excellent... I could go on, but you get the picture. The only mildly disappointing piece was the Chorizo al Vino, which in itself was a well-executed dish, but based on a good spicy pork sausage, sadly not chorizo. I'm coming to expect this, though, and regular readers will know this is a bit of a hobby horse of mine.

Tapas for me is about relaxation, grazing, and complex, comforting flavours. It's easy to get wrong by being over-fussy or generally crap at cooking, and I've been subjected to both many times both in the UK and abroad. Dida's gets it right, by focusing on great basic ingredients, taking time and care with their preparation, and serving them without ceremony in a pleasant, convivial place on Jervois Road. The only shame is that I'm not still there now, working my way through the back half of the menu.

54, Jervois Road,
Ponsonby
Auckland 1011

+64 (0) 9376 2813

Orbit, Auckland Central

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 05:52:00 +0000

Say what you like about Auckland's Sky Tower, but I'm a bit of a fan of it. It's hard to imagine what Auckland would be like without it - the standard of architecture here is generally pretty poor so something to give the city a bit of identity is much needed. Not that it's particularly attractive, but you have to admit it's an impressive structure, even more so considering Auckland's tendency to earthquakes and the like. The view from 186 metres up (the height of the observation deck), as you'd expect, is terrific.

I do start to get a bit twitchy though, when I'm approaching a restaurant at which the food is not the star attraction. It's a fairly obvious deduction to make that if you own a restaurant perched atop something like the Sky Tower, there's little incentive to focus on the quality of the food, when you know full well that a) no one's paying that much attention to it, and b) people will come for the view regardless of the quality of the food.

Selfless chap that I am, and fortified with little more than a brace of vodkas and a fairly enthusiastic G&T, I accompanied the future in-laws up the tower for a birthday meal (not mine). Perhaps it was my lowered expectations, but I was really quite impressed.

The food, then. A prix fixe including a slightly over-fussy but perfectly good smoked duck and mushroom tart, followed by roast lamb loin with a 'tomato, rosemary and kalamata olive compote' and a 'grilled spring onion', completed by a chocolate parfait, for $65 with a couple of glasses of wine thrown in. Whilst it was far from phenomenal (a well-executed but cacophonous starter, lacklustre (but perfectly cooked) lamb and frankly bizarre pairing of otherwise excellent flavours in the dessert), from a value perspective you couldn't beat it.

Service was that of a slightly more expensive restaurant - all the staff seemed properly trained, helpful and knowledgeable, and didn't seem to mind helping people find their seats again after a bathroom visit - the whole restaurant revolves about one and hour, which can get disorientating after a couple of revolutions. The wine list wasn't exceptional, but did the job very well indeed, and without the usual wallet-rape that's become all-too-frequent in this town.

So on the whole, pleasantly surprised. I was expecting awful, and instead got above-average, and crucially served at a below-average price. On the whole, if you're entertaining people from out of town who understand that sometimes the food can play second fiddle to stunning views of Auckland, Orbit could be a good bet.

Orbit
SkyCity Auckland
Corner Victoria and Federal Streets
Auckland
+64 (0) 9 363 6000

Wishbone, Auckland Central

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:55:00 +0000

I don’t generally review weekday lunch venues, as there’s only so much you can say about sandwiches, but I think Wishbone deserves a mention, for having served me one of the worst lunches I’ve had in my four months of working in the CBD. To be fair, I’ve had sandwiches from here a number of times in the past and they’ve generally been a good average; fresh, well-filled and so on, and not disastrously expensive. The hot food looks tempting, and last week I was eyeing the ‘Chicken and Chorizo Paella’ hungrily, but for some reason went to the sandwich display instead.

This week I once again ignored what I’m learning are pretty good instincts, and ordered the paella. I’m regretting it right now, as I’m also regretting passing up the opportunity presented by numerous bins on the walk from Vulcan Lane to my office.

True, for $7 I’m not expecting miracles. From a metal dish kept under a heat lamp all day, I’m not expecting rice that’s not overcooked. However, budgets and cooking facilities don’t make up for a box of mushy rice and stringy chicken with so much aggressive seasoning it put me in mind of a washing up liquid I once bought, all acrid chemically rosemary and stinging salt. This is what I imagine Milton Keynes tastes like.

Let’s talk for a moment about the Chorizo. I have been living in Auckland for nine months now, and have been on the lookout for real cooking Chorizo (actually, real Chorizo of any kind would do), with no results to show so far. My luck did not turn at Wishbone, whose paella actually contained several wafer-thin slices of what seemed to be a sort of highly processed pork sausage, seasoned with a powerful chilli pepper of some kind, again artificial and tasteless beyond the burn. Grim beyond belief.

So I say this to whoever calls themselves a cook at Wishbone, and to the butchers of New Zealand in general – Chorizo is not just a spicy pork sausage, and to sell a stick of processed, acridly spiced MRM as such is criminal.

Anyway, my rant about sub-standard pork produce aside, the sandwiches are acceptable at Wishbone, but the hot food seems pretty dire. Avoid.

1 Vulcan Lane
Auckland 1010
+64 (0) 9 368 5044

Bouchon Creperie & Wine Café, Kingsland

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:52:00 +0000

After last night's appalling meal, we needed something to redress the balance. A bit of simplicity, a bit of basic good cooking. Having walked past Bouchon a fair bit in the past on the way to other places, we'd been meaning to actually walk in for a while. The promise of some decent crepes first thing in the morning was too much to resist on this occasion.

There's a fine line a venue has to tread between authenticity and pastiche, and Bouchon manages to fall on the right side of it, mainly through an authentic French don't-really-care attitude, which I personally love. Careworn walls, ancient adverts for various French things, everything in its right place. Sunny, charmingly unaffected service.

The missus opted for a sweet option - banana, honey and almonds. Pronounced it 'good', with the sort of look on her face that I only wish I could invoke more often. As for me, I went with the Classique - a buckwheat pancake filled with cheese, eggs, and in my case, lardons the size and intensity of which I've never seen before. So very, very good. Full-flavoured, generously portioned, and only about $12. Good coffee, too, actually slightly better than the one I had from Roasted Addiqtion the morning before.

The wine list looks interesting, too, although even though it was a French place and they probably wouldn't care, I couldn't stretch to a Bandol at 10:30am on a Sunday. We're definitely headed back there for dinner at some point though - if they can get a staple like a savoury crepe absolutely spot on, the omens look good for the evening service. There's stiff competition for food in Kingsland, and Bouchon holds its own with a particularly insouciant, effortless Gallic ease.

Bouchon Creperies & Wine Café

479 New North Road

Kingsland

Auckland

+64 (0) 9 845 1680

Estasi, Ponsonby

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:15:00 +0000

Come on, you knew this could never be a positive review. Look at the name of the place for Christ's sake - unless this place is knocking out pills of the decidedly dodgy type, it's never going to live up to it, is it? It doesn't end there - styling a restaurant like some low-rent Euro-disco circa 1992 just doesn't get the appetite going.

But where friends go, friends must follow, and thus I ended up spending part of my Saturday night perusing one of the most challenging menus I've seen in the last six months and wondering if it'd be rude of me to excuse myself to visit the Murder Burger down the road. Challenging in the wrong way, in case you wondered.

Let's start with the wine list, because that's what I did. Brands abound, with a double slap in the face in that not only did we recognise most of these from the middle shelves of most supermarkets, but that the enormous mark up was that much more obvious this way. I used to work in wine wholesale, so I get the economics at work here, but there's no way you can get me to shell out $40 for Oyster Bay, the one purest expression of how utterly pallid New Zealand wine can get. Forgive me for being mildly disappointed, but aren't we in a wine-producing country here? Pride in a national product, anyone? There's plenty of astounding wine being made here, much of it very reasonably priced, so there's no excuse for it not to turn up on restaurant lists.

So, disappointment so far. For some reason, we were taking our time to decide on the food order, despite several increasingly urgent requests from our waitress. Perhaps some sort of extra-sensory perception was holding us back - our brains warning us not to go any further. Or perhaps we were just desperately scouring the list looking for anything remotely edible.

Trust your instincts, mother always used to say, and on this occasion I sorely wished I had. With the kitchen having run out of lamb shanks (at 8pm on a Saturday night - nice ordering, guys), I went for the steak, opting for the simplest option on the menu for safety. Rare, came the done side of medium. A very poor piece of meat, which the kitchen had attempted to disguise with a slick coating of dense mushroom sauce. Piled precariously next to it were some leaden sauteed potatoes topped with 'mushy peas' - in reality some garden peas which a particularly venomous chef had cooked until dry and then squashed with a fork.

Lack of anything of interest in front of me led to me checking out the other plates. On the one opposite me, chicken. Doused in the same sauce that drowned my steak. On the one next to me, venison, with the same bizarre vegetable tower as on mine. The cynicism from the kitchen flavoured everything - when they constructed my meal, did they think carefully about every component or chuck together whatever they had in the fridge? The same accompaniment, the same sauce for multiple dishes doesn't really make you think there's a particularly discerning hand at work back there. The fact that both elements were extraordinarily badly cooked didn't help matters.

Funnily, given her earlier clinginess, our waitress disappeared completely shortly after the second bottle of wine (between five people) was ordered. We eventually managed to collar a colleague and terrorize them into bringing one over, but this continued. Dessert was skipped as firstly there was literally nothing on the menu worth the bother (a rarity in itself when dining with three women), and secondly as we seriously thought we might be there until Sunday evening.

Coffee then. Predictably awful. The price? At $30 a main dish on average, not horrendous, but not brilliant either. I'm not sure what's more offensive, the cynically constructed, badly cooked food, the frankly weird service, or the fact that at the end of all of this, they actually want you to pay for it.

Trust your instincts. Go anywhere else.

Estasi

222 Ponsonby Road

Auckland

+64 (0) 9 361 3222

http://www.estasi.co.nz

Mekong Neua, Kingsland

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:27:00 +0000

One of the many food-related things that London does pretty poorly is Thai food. For every Soho Thai or Busaba Eathai, there's a hundred local aberrations such as Ta Krai and the like. Seriously, London has a great rep and some terrific restaurants, but scratch the surface and there's some horrible crap there. Tough, overcooked meats; thin, spiteful sauces; cynical chillies; limp... everything. We had to leave, if only for the sake of our dinners.

Fortunately since coming to Auckland we've had some tremendous Thai meals, one such being a midweek sojourn at Mekong Neua - a comparatively understated little place quietly holding its own amid louder neighbours such as Canton Café. It's a curious little place, with a roaring fire in the front section comically lent a bit of heat by a strategically-placed electric heater. Odd little touches like this aside though, it's comfortably forgettable inside.

The food's the star in this one though, with the crispier appetisers showing a deft hand on the fryer handle and a typically simple yet effective dipping sauce setting the selection off perfectly. Curries were rich, flavoursome and powerfully chillied as requested, with everything in them perfectly cooked and still bursting with flavour and character.

I don't mean to be controversial, but I think there's only so far you can take some cuisines. Thai, certain Indian, Cantonese - all great foods but you wouldn't want any of them messed with, elevated to rarified heights like the finest French or Japanese dishes. Their charm lies in their substance, their earthiness, their unfussed simplicity. So-called 'Royal' Thai as practised at places like Fulham's Blue Elephant leaves me a bit cold (not to mention irritatingly poorer).

This is where it's at - fiery chillies, substantial sauces, experienced cooking and great service. All of these are in ample supply at Mekong Neua - worth braving Kingsland's notoriously appalling parking for.

Vivace, Auckland Central

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 06:52:00 +0000

Like many things, hackneyed phrases tend to get my hackles up - 'too many cooks spoil the broth'; 'many hands make light work'; 'he doesn't suffer fools gladly'; 'at the end of the day...' All excuses of a foetid and stagnant vocabulary, if you ask me.

Take, for example, 'never judge a book by its cover'. Personally I tend to, and in the main I have excellent results. If the author's name is embossed, and in larger type than the title, it's probably rubbish. If it has the words Dan Brown on it, it'll be an almighty crap-fest of tenuous conspiracy theories and increasingly implausible events, written by a five-year-old. My prejudice is there for a reason, and serves me well.

The same goes with restaurants - you know the bad signs. Pictures of food outside, with the exception of certain Asian restaurants, is never a good omen. Puns in the name - never good. Waiters loitering in the doorway - instantly avoid. Names that promise too much too overtly - again with the exception of the numerous excellent Chinese restaurants named 'Lucky...' - tend to under-deliver.

Vivace reminded me on first sight of cello lessons aged 10. Dreading the sight of that word on a piece of music, whose meaning (lively, fast-paced) meant fumbled notes, sweaty hands and a grim look from the tutor as I hacked and sawed my way through a quicker than usual passage. But that's just me - I would assume that the name promises a 'lively' place, and that gives me a creeping sense that I'm about to be disappointed. Banishing these thoughts, I followed my companions in.

It's actually quite a good descriptor, this one. On a Friday evening, the place was about as lively as it could be without being irritating. Like a lot of good places on a Friday night, the exhilaration of ending a working week was tangible. Loud, vibrant and instantly appealing - the four of us joined in immediately, attacking a superb Ribiero del Duero with enthusiasm whilst attempting to order at least one of everything from the hot tapas menu.

And the food is good. For Auckland's CBD it's excellent, with the food as uplifting as the atmosphere - melting cubes of slow-cooked pork belly, sizzling chorizo slices, deliciously stuffed bell peppers and plate after plate of equally tremendous morsels which disappeared with indecent pace. The end of the meal came more as a physical necessity than anything else.

It got me thinking about going out to dinner on the weekend. Is anyone in the mood for intense fine dining on a Friday night? Or do we want to hoover excellent red wine and hearty tapas-style food, talking loudly and reveling in the weekend to come? I do - and Vivace's the place to do it. This is one place that really does live up to the name. Definitely recommended.

Vivace
50 High Street
Auckland Central
1010

+64 (0) 9 302 2303

http://www.vivacerestaurant.co.nz

Squid Row, Eden Terrace

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:46:00 +0000

Europeans eating seafood in New Zealand occasionally have to take a bit of a step back and realign their expectations. Sometimes things are just... different. Not better, not worse, but different all the same, and you sometimes have to relearn a food, if you see what I mean.

Not Marmite. You just have to find English Marmite - there's no learning otherwise.

What I'm talking about essentially are mussels. Going for a kilo of moules frites, whether in London or Paris, you expect dozens of deliciously sweet little beasties, tender and flavoursome, and crisp, salted, pointy frites. Not French Fries (whatever they actually are), and not fat chips. Perhaps a bit of baguette on the side. Beer, probably.

Here, moules are an entirely other affair. Roughly the size of an old man's ear, they are, and about ten to a kilo. Meaty yet soft, and whilst just as seasidey in their flavour, there's something else going on there too, something richer, less sweet than their northern hemisphere cousins. Something tells me though that, for all their robustness, like any shellfish they're just as vulnerable to being overcooked by an inattentive chef.

Fortunately this is unlikely to occur at Squid Row. The only dodgy thing you're likely to encounter here is the name (punning restaurant names make you sound like a crap hairdresser). Squid Row is one part 50s surf style and one part Belgian beer hall, the combination working a whole lot better than it sounds. Go for the fishy options and you'll not be disappointed - our starter of squid crusted and deep-fried was one of the best versions we've had, reminding us quite why this ubiquitous dish became so popular in the first place. Moules themselves were phenomenal, the white wine (not quite mariniere but close) sauce rich and rocking with flavour, and the perfect consistency.

And the rest? Good (not great) chips - too fat and not frites by a long shot, unremarkable bread but good service even on a lively Saturday evening whilst the ABs were giving Italy less of a pasting than they probably deserved. It's got to be said, the bar for seafood in Auckland is pretty high, but Squid Row was right up there. Good moules require a good formula, a tried and tested combination of a great sauce; a careful eye on the cooking time; a noisy, busy, shouty restaurant; good frites and some decent stuff to drink. Squid Row has enough of these in place to merit a visit.

Squid Row
224 Symonds Street
Auckland
New Zealand

+64 (0) 9 379 9344

http://www.squidrow.co.nz

Byzantium Café, Ponsonby

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 02:49:00 +0000

A little while ago, I made a decision in relation to this blog. I'd written about a few cafés and their brunch offerings, and to be honest I was running out of things to say about eggs benedict, french toast, pancakes and coffee, great though all these things are. So I've decided that rather than turn out an identikit review of every identikit café I visit of a Saturday or Sunday, I'm only going to write something in response to something unusually good or bad.

And so we come to Byzantium, a fairly unpreposessing place towards the K Road end of Ponsonby Road, more or less, nestled in among the antique shops. First impressions count for a lot with me, and within about 15 seconds I'd decided that no review would be forthcoming as I asked for eggs benny and a flat white, an order as mediocre and predictable as I was sure the food would be.

And by and large, it was. With the exception of a truly incredible and unusual hollandaise sauce, which was not only fresh as a daisy, but bright, lively, citrussy and zingy, lifting the whole dish and basically giving me something to write about. Coffee - fine. Bacon - fine. Eggs - fine. Muffin - present. Sauce - currently holds the No.2 position, second only to the tremendous Landreth & Co a little way up the road.

Fair brightened my whole day, that did.

Byzantium Café
80 Ponsonby Road
Auckland

+64 (0) 9 376 3695

Ivy Restaurant & Bar, Kingsland

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:24:00 +0000

Ivy (and I'm resisting the temptation to call it 'The Ivy') has been tempting me for months. Adding an extra dimension of well-heeled class to Kingsland's laid-back charm, it sits on its corner radiating confident cool, looking for all the world like a dispensary for the best martinis for miles around.

Decor-wise, it's a nicely-executed take on modern lifestyle mag chic by numbers, with black playing a predominant part alongside quirky Victoriana prints and the like, and very nicely it works too. That's the thing about places like this - there's undoubtedly a stereotype being adhered to here and there's no surprises, and that it's a commonly done look is because it fundamentally works.

On the food front, the menu is functional, with a pared-down selection that speaks of a few things done well rather than every base covered poorly. That was the hope, at least. A starting platter of cold meats was promising, with sliced pork belly, chorizo, smoked chicken and the like flavoursome, tender and satisfying. At least, they would have been had they not been served straight from the fridge and thus turned out leaden and mute.

The main courses in many ways reflected the interior design - on the pleasant side of mediocre. My roast chicken was a tad overdone, as usual, with the accompanying bits nicely treated and whilst the flavours didn't exactly sing, they were definitely there. The fish and chips ordered by the missus were pronounced 'fine'.

All of this 'ok-ness' was delivered to our table with a weird mix of teutonic frostiness and wild over-enthusiasm, a combination that was as odd as it sounds. If you fancy a bit of comedy next time you dine here, ask to have the wine list left on your table after you've ordered. You may have to prise it back out of their hands.

As for that wine list, well, it shows what Ivy really does well. This, after all, is a Bar. A Bar That Sells Drinks, and occasionally food, and that needs to be understood up front. As well chosen a list as I've seen in Auckland bars features a nice spread across provenance, grape variety and price, and the ranks of spirits behind the bar promise a great cocktail evening, should you be in the mood. Round the back, there's a separate room with a slightly more bordello-esque feel (marred only slightly by the constant stream of punters wandering through to the toilets, but perhaps that's part of the intentional seediness, I'm too old to know for sure), which gives a slightly more intimate feel than the front room.

Regular readers will know that I've got a bit of a thing against places that pretend to be what they're not, or try to be too many things at once. For this reason I quite like Ivy: it's a great-looking bar, with some great stuff to drink, and if you feel a little peckish it'll do some above-average food at a decent price, and it doesn't ever try to be any more than that.

Ivy Restaurant & Bar
463 New North Road,
Kingsland
Auckland

+64 (0) 9 815 1535

Soul Bar & Bistro, Viaduct

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:45:00 +0000

There's a rule of thumb I've often heard mentioned by 'foodie' European holidaymakers. There are those who will tell you that the best, and best value food to be found in beachside towns is invariably in the restaurants with the worst views. The one tucked away down a sidestreet, not the one with the luscious harbour or beach views and sundrenched decks. As an entirely food-focused rule, it's fairly astute, as expensive ground rents and building costs tend to move a restaurateur's focus rapidly from quality to high-margin quantity. However, speaking for myself, I'd rather eat good food in a clean place with a great view, than great food whilst watching cockroaches scuttle across cracked lino in a darkened corner somewhere.

Eating in Auckland's Viaduct Harbour, though, stirs some of this old prejudice in me still. It's an expensive, high profile place to set up. It's the dead centre of Auckland's tourism industry. It's a mecca for stag and hen parties, after-work drinks and overseas conference attendees. Traditional wisdom would suggest that it's the last place one would go for a great meal out with a few friends.

Traditional wisdom also once suggested the world was flat.

As we've seen, the Bar / Restaurant combo is a tricky one to get right. Lively, enthusiastic drinking sits uneasily with white-tablecloth dining. Here though, as you enter, the bar curves to the right, channelling drinkers into the 'drinking' area, whilst the restaurant inside is raised up a few feet, with a heavy curtain that can be drawn across. The implied separation of the two works well. I think the main positive is for the diners; as the night draws on, the place fills up with the sort of comedy Euro-sleaze that's always great entertainment. Watching portly, overtanned balding types paw bored teenagers with their chubby, signet ringed fingers is always good value.

Fortunately though, the main attraction is the food itself, which on the face of it is the sort of pan-European-with-a-Pacific-twist cuisine that I'm learning forms the basis of most Kiwi diets. In the wrong hands this can be disastrous - blend cuisines at your peril - but here it's handled very deftly indeed, matching flavours for their compatibility and wit, rather than purely because they turned up on the same shelf in the fridge and hey, no-one's thought of it before.

My starter of stuffed zucchini flowers was purely brilliant. Simple, expertly cooked, surrounded with a piquillo pepper salsa and dots of the same venerable, sticky balsamic that accompanied the bread. It's an Italian dish that doesn't bear mucking around with, but the gentle Spanish touch from the salsa worked terrifically well.

Next followed the only real downside of the evening - an interminable wait for service. As we were a decently-sized table, it didn't matter all that much as we could keep each other entertained, but I did notice a few couples sitting with empty plates staring gloomily at the waiting staff for far too long. Interestingly, I notice that most reviews written online which complain about slow service are written by one half of a couple. When the conversation dries up, a few extra minutes spent waiting for the next course can seem like half an hour.

Still, as one of our party said shortly after the next course arrived 'That was so worth waiting for'. Despite the excellent seafood options, I'd gone for the roast chicken with Puy lentils and a smoked chipotle, lime and coriander dressing, and yep, this was up there with the best dishes I've had in New Zealand to date. Roast chicken seems simple, but it's deceptively hard to get right (which, egregiously, was sort of why I'd chosen it). Inexperienced chefs often overcook it for expediency, but this corn-fed supreme was moist, tender, chock-full of flavour and crispy of skin. Other dishes seemed similarly excellent, but to be honest I was far too focused on mine to care. Great chicken and perfectly-cooked, smokily flavoured Puy lentils tend to distract me from pretty much anything.

Dessert was going to be passed over, until the missus and I spotted the chocolate marquise with salted hazelnuts, caramel and buttermilk icecream, which was every bit as good as it sounds. Although we didn't take advantage of it (it being nearly midnight when we left - for a table booked for 1930 this is testament to the glacial service pace), an excellent-looking cheese selection was offered alongside the dessert menu, which personally I loved, being a real fan of the French-style serving of a cheese plate after a meal. I can't get this fad for serving it as a pre-dinner thing at all.

Add to this a serviceable wine list, and I have to say I was impressed. The bar element didn't bother us at all, serving mainly as a welcome bit of pre-Bad Michael Jackson and some hilarious lessons in how not to age gracefully. If anything it livened the place up a bit, resulting in an atmosphere just as uplifting, well-judged and generous as the food on our plates. As for the service, it didn't really bother us at all - we spent a leisurely evening chatting, eating and drinking and, with no immediate plans to do anything else, were perfectly happy doing just that.

Soul Bar & Bistro
Viaduct Harbour
Auckland City

+ 64 (09) 356 7249
http://www.soulbar.co.nz

Murder Burger, Ponsonby

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:44:00 +0000

Ok, disclosure time first. I've been a fan of Murder Burger for some time already. Despite never having eaten there, I love the branding, the messaging, the decor and the overall tone of the place. It takes a certain kind of warped logic to call a burger joint 'Murder Burger', to feature a kitten in the logo and to dress the staff in t-shirts saying 'Meat Is Murder'. I love it.

So this afternoon it didn't take a great deal of arm-twisting for the missus to convince me to take the trip to Ponsonby to try it out at last. I think I was expectantly sitting in the car before she got to the end of the sentence. Weirdly, as we parked, I noticed myself actually getting nervous. Would it actually be any good? Had I been shallow enough to be won over purely by the power of marketing (not for the first time, either)? Was I about to be humungously disappointed?

No. Not at all. Not one tiny little bit. Not even a smidgen.

I've said this before on this blog, but a burger shouldn't be a hard thing to get right, but from a few previous experiences like the one a bit down the road from here, it would seem so. Apparently it's phenomenally difficult for some people. Not so for the Murder Burger team, whose patties are top-quality beef, gristle-free and packed with unadulterated MEAT flavour.

This is a burger joint that's not afraid of the meat - take the only salad option for example. The 'Meat Salad' is described as follows: A whole punnet just filled with lamb french cutlets, free range bacon and chicken nibbles, covered with the sauce of your choosing and no vegetables at all. Don't tell me there's any part of you that doesn't want this." Brilliant.

Back to the burger. They're all served in a focaccia bun, which is initially alarming as focaccia is one of the many breads that is entirely unsuited to burger-holding, but fortunately Murder Burger's definition of 'focaccia' is basically a slightly herbed burger bun, so it passes. My Gourmet* Beef, Cheese & Mustard burger was just that, that excellent patty, plenty of wholegrain mustard and a melting bit of fake cheese (always fake cheese - real cheese has no place in a burger, unless it's blue), and a tolerable amount of simple salad.

See? Simple. High quality. Well-cooked. What more you might need I do not know. Oh, and rumours of sky-high prices here abound and I can confirm they're wholly untrue. Mine was $10.50 and worth every cent, the most expensive is $14.90 for a massive-sounding beast of a burger.

So there we are. My faith in New Zealand's burger ability restored. Kiwi carnivores, you have a duty to visit this place, and frequently. Commitment to quality, and a sense of humour like this must both be encouraged.

Murder Burger
128a Ponsonby Road
Auckland

+64 (0) 9 550 5500

http://www.murderburger.co.nz

* Yes, as I've said this word is horribly overused and I hate it. Here they also have a range of burgers called 'Super Gourmet', and I'm not sure whether this is a massive pisstake of 'Gourmet' culture or not. It should be.

Jones The Grocer, Newmarket

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:59:00 +0000

In a country where the dairy industry makes up such a huge percentage of the GDP, it's a surprise to see artisanal cheese production only just beginning to take hold. Sure, in every Foodtown, New World and Pak 'n' Save, you can find fridges full of mass-produced facsimiles of Colby, cheddar, brie and camembert (these last two indistiguishable from each other), but what I've been looking for since I've been here are two things:

1. Actual cheese. If I'm in the mood for Brie, I want it to come from France, to be actual Brie, not 'brie-style' or 'brie-flavoured' cheese. I will pay what it costs and eat it rarely if I must.

2. New Zealand cheese. Surely there must be a cheesemakers here who can make an indigenous cheese, something that speaks of where it's from? Why try to emulate something that's done perfectly well (and let's be honest, better) somewhere else, when you could be producing something brilliant and unique that can't be bettered elsewhere?

These two I have found at Jones. Their cheese room reminds me of Neal's Yard in Borough Market, with temperature and humidity kept constantly perfect, as is the condition of their product. Their passion for what they do is unrivalled, to the point that you actually have to stop them talking when you want to pay up and leave.

And so on one hand, they have genuine Stilton (still pasteurised, sadly, but that's EC legislation for you), wheels of perfectly ripe brie, excellent chevre and plenty of the more arcane European cheeses. On the other, they have a growing collection of local produce, showcasing just how good New Zealand cheese can be when the focus is on 'let's make something that's the best we can make', rather than 'what's the cheapest way we can make something and stick a familiar name on the packet?'.

In addition to all this, the deli and grocery stores stock a superb selection, the cured meats in particular being worth a look. Yesterday I tried some of the best pancetta I've had yet, and some excellent Iberico sausage, both actually surprisingly reasonably priced for what they were.

Definitely worth a visit if you're at all interested in what you eat. Proud Kiwis would do well to support the elements of their dairy industry who are keeping their product 100% New Zealand and producing something excellent, rather than those who're imitating something else, badly.

Jones The Grocer
143 Carlton Gore Road
Newmarket
Auckland

+64 (0) 9 522 9161

http://www.jonesthegrocer.com

Two Fifteen, Mt Eden

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:14:00 +0000

Being a Brit recently arrived in Auckland, I occasionally get a craving for a taste of home. Not 'home' as in dodgy pub food and flaccid clingfilmed sandwiches, but 'home' as in genuine, full-flavoured and exciting European food. I mean chorizo that's actually chorizo, risotto that doesn't come in a packet, food cooked with an understanding that butter is a crucial ingredient rather than a curse on mankind, and so on. Don't get me wrong - there's plenty of great food to be had here, but as I'm sure Kiwis in the UK find, local cuisine is fine to an extent, but sometimes you just want something that tastes like it did at home.

So reading in a recent issue of Dish magazine that ex Orbit (SkyCity) sous-chef Jeremy Schmid had opened Two Fifteen on Dominion Road, and that said restaurant focused on 'familiar bistro fare' with a modern twist, I thought I'd give it a go. The menu certainly looks the part, not over-fussy, with classic dishes such as pork, herb & garlic sausage with mashed potato and browned onions and roast chicken with pumpkin & parmesan smash showing what looks like a dedication to getting the basics right, whilst adding a little interest along the way. So we booked for the future father-in-law's 60th birthday, during the week (the main celebration being on the weekend).

Now, whilst I agree that you can't be all things to all people all of the time, I'm normally satisfied with being some things to most people most of the time. Two Fifteen faces a bit of a challenge from the outset, being both a 'bistro' and a 'wine bar' on the sign outside and managing to not quite be either on the inside. I appreciate the concept entirely - the idea that whatever you come in for, be it a full three course thing or just a glass of wine, you'll be treated the same and feel just as comfortable - but it's in the execution that this falls down. Take Fifteen in London for example, which has a similar ethos. Upstairs are the drinkers and snackers. Downstairs are the diners. Neither is made to feel uncomfortable by the others' presence.

At Two Fifteen (see what I did there?), the two clash horribly. Our six diners were seated on a table for eight. The other two places were occupied by two old-school business gentlemen who seemed to have been there for most of the afternoon. I'm as liberal as the next man, and after a few wines have been known to get a bit lairy, but sitting right next to a table of newly-arrived diners these two were mightily out of order. Had they been sitting in an actual bar, with other drinkers, it wouldn't have been a problem. But seated at the same table as six diners who didn't know them from Adam, it was a terrible start to the night. Mentioning this to the waiting staff provided precisely no reaction, so one of our party had to tackle it himself, resulting in a faintly uncomfortable feeling in our corner of the room.

This episode swallowed, we moved on. Bread was unremarkable. I'm a big sourdough fan, and this was standard white, fluffy, dull. The butter was excellent, though - well sourced and served at the perfect temperature. The menu, as I've mentioned, is petite but well thought out. Again, the theory is spot on, but the execution is lacking.

I've been spoilt with pork belly recently, at Black Barn in Hawke's Bay. I've cooked it a lot too. The low temperatures, long cooking time and moisture provided by the meat itself helped with wine and oil all combine to produce something silkily gorgeous, something meltingly tender and deeply, richly flavoured. Serve straight from the oven for maximum effect. Unless you're the chaps at Two Fifteen who take a roast that was overly-garlicked to start with, slice, cool and then heat up on the grill, ensuring a starkly flavoured, dry, dense cut, the complete antithesis of what pork belly should be. I have pondered the logic of this over and over since, and can only assume that there's a stauch vegetarian cooking in there. Accompanying kumara mash was sickly and dense, but that's par for the course with kumara I find.

That said, whoever's behind the pass does know fish, and the cooking thereof, as the pan-fried snapper was as good a piece of fish as I've seen in a restaurant, expertly fried with crisped skin and softly flaking flesh beneath. The herb risotto upon which it rested, however, was pooled on top with melted butter, speaking of either too long under the heat lamps or simply poor technique.

The dessert menu was where Two Fifteen shone. The flourless chocolate cake is absolutely superb, with the accompanying salted caramel and passion fruit mascarpone providing a brilliant counterpoint to the richness of the cake. An excellent parfait was light, delicate, and amusingly scattered with 'baby popcorn', which I still can't quite work out. The one low point came in the presentation of the caramel hazelnut tart, which although delicious, looked for all the world as if it had just been removed from its wrapper.

On the wine front, the list is decent, but not up to scratch for a self-styled 'wine bar'. Mid-market brands abound, prices are on the optimistic side (possibly to compensate for the very reasonably priced food). The service is endearingly inept, 10 points for effort and friendliness, but a little to learn nonetheless. It's no fun watching your beautiful dessert wilt for 10 minutes whilst the final plate is brought to the table, no matter how many apologies you get in the meantime.

So on the whole, what's the verdict? Mixed, I'm afraid. The theory of this place is great, and some of the execution is good too. Service will improve with time, it's early days yet. The desserts are excellent, creative and well-made. But the practice of intermingling casual drinkers with diners, the appalling way that pork was treated, the uninspired, lacklustre wine list and a number of frankly careless errors in the kitchen are more worrying; this speaks of a more deep-seated problem with Two Fifteen, that amid the flashes of greatness, perhaps they're just fundamentally not very good at being either a restaurant or a bar.

With time, I would love to be proved wrong, as Auckland needs more places with this description. They just need to be able deliver on the promise.

Two Fifteen Bistro and Wine Bar
215 Dominion Road
Mt Eden
Auckland
+64 (0) 9 630 6474

http://twofifteen.co.nz

Landreth & Co, Ponsonby

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:07:00 +0000

Brunch is a tricky meal. It's one of those liminal gastronomical spaces; neither breakfast nor lunch, offering choices spanning from a cheeky piece of fresh fruit to... pretty much anything, really. This lack of constraint also offers both the widest opportunity during the day for severe food envy, and a yawning chasm for the average restaurateur to fall into.

Fortunately for those within striking distance of Ponsonby, John and Jason at Landreth & Co are anything but average. It stands out a mile on Ponsonby Road, being characterful, charming and genuine, with the focus firmly on the core product - excellent food, deft service, and a great-looking wine list. Inside and outside, it's decorated with a finely-tuned air of studied carelessness, hitting the spot with a reasonably accurate replication of any of a million small, comfortable French cafés. One wall hung with antique mirrors dapples the room in sunlight whilst giving a sense of spaciousness.

Service in general is only worth commenting on when there's something wrong with it - it should be practically unnoticeable, and here it certainly is. The brunch menu is superb, if arguably a little overly elaborate, with everything from a beautifully-presented fruit salad to 'meat loaf' (in reality a terrine of duck confit, pork, beef and bacon - a stretch for brunch but it's definitely on my 'must try for lunch' list). Staples such as Bircher muesli and eggs benedict are also in play.

So, if a good hotel is judged by the dry martini at the bar and the club & fries in the room, so is a good cafe by a flat white and eggs benny. The coffee was absolutely spot on, punchy, rich and darkly aromatic with just a touch of bitterness. Rather than the hot coffee milkshake these drinks can be, it was thick and superbly constructed, and the perfect temperature from the moment it arrived.

And the eggs. People I know are in the quest for the perfect eggs benedict, and guys, if you're reading this, I have found the mother lode. This is a serious business, and I know you'll want detail, so I feel I should deconstruct it bit by bit:

Muffin
English. Semi-toasted. Doughy, yeasty and slightly sour, a little wider than usual, which was great; held the admirable portion well.

Bacon
Back, from the look of it. Lean, but with enough fat to lend a ton of flavour. Crisp around the edges but still juicy.

Eggs
Perfect. Not a single fault.

Hollandaise
The best I've had to date - silky, light but richly flavoured with every ingredient in perfect balance. Someone back there really knows what they're doing here.

Garnish
A few sprinkled chopped chives and (offered, accepted) freshly ground black pepper.

Needless to say, I will be going back. If only to try some of the Sicilian blood orange juice they've got in at the moment (why is this so hard to come by over here??). Very highly recommended, whatever time of day you fancy dropping in. As for the food envy, I definitely clocked my muesli-eating companions eyeing up my benny. Hands off.

Landreth & Co,
272 Ponsonby Road
Auckland
+64 (0) 9 360 7440

http://www.landrethandco.co.nz/

Sale St Brewery, Freemans Bay

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:37:00 +0000

I am a bit of a snob. There, I said it. I'm not necessarily proud of it, but it's probably true. The more mainstream a band gets, the less I'm inclined to like them. I got considerably less enthused about seeing Slumdog Millionaire when it won all those Academy Awards. By the time the Fat Duck was a staple on the corporate entertainment circuit, it had lost all its appeal to me. Thus I'd decided well in advance that I really couldn't be arsed with Sale St.

News of Sale St had reached us by the time we arrived in Auckland in January, and mentions of it have kept cropping up since then, generally in explanations of hangovers, 'what a great place' and so on. When we decided to meet for lunch there, I was in two minds about what to expect. It's a big place, with lots of different faces - a bar, a cafe, a restaurant, a brewery, a live music venue, serving bar food, pizzas, brunch... and this often spells A V O I D. Over-egging a proposition usually leads to chaos, and those many things done half-heartedly. I'd rather see one thing done well, than be subjected to a hospitality version of a Swiss army knife.

The multi-function aspect to Sale St isn't immediately apparent, which in my book is a good thing, managing to feel intimate whilst actually being pretty big. It reminded me a lot of Cargo, back in London, but smarter, with better food, and less full of children. It's laid-back to the point of being fully reclined, with service attaining that beautiful level of appearing off-hand and lazy, but in reality being highly efficient and attentive. Offering sunblock to those sitting outside is a nice touch that's all too rare in New Zealand.

The brewery itself turns out some interesting stuff. Asking about the local brews produced a few samples and a helpful chat through them - the summer ale in particular is a peculiarly good one, with flavours of ginger and honey making an excellent food beer. The Ponsonby Gold, being less unique, is a much better session beer, smooth and full-flavoured. The wine list is worth a look, too - and better still, your waiter will probably know their way around it, too - how often can you say that??

On the food front, the brunch menu is pretty average in content, but the bar menu is where the kitchen seems to come to life a bit. It's refreshingly simple, showing a reliance on quality ingredients and cooking skill, rather than the overload of flavours New Zealand restaurants seem to love. Chilli salted squid was tender and judiciously flavoured, with some excellent nuoc cham on the side. Fries were spot on, crisp and fluffy inside, a massive portion with a good helping of harissa mayo.

The pizzas look good too, despite an odd pricing policy putting them at $22, way more than anything else on the bar menu. They are a healthy 12" though, and the toppings look fresh, well-matched and believably Italian for the most part. No pineapple in sight - grown-ups and anyone who's ever been to Italy will be pleased. The coffee was good, not great, serving a relatively bitter roast which would appeal to some palates but definitely not all.

So on the whole, I'd been prepared to be disappointed, but it's actually a great venue - and we're looking forward to going back, either for lunch or for drinks, or perhaps both... I guess the beauty of Sale St is that you could conceivably stay there from breakfast til closing time, and provided you changes seats a few times, it wouldn't get boring.

And on my opening point - I stand corrected. This once.

Sale St Brewery
7 Sale Street
Freemans Bay
Auckland

+64 (0) 9 307 8148
http://www.salest.co.nz

Soljans Café, Kumeu

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:55:00 +0000

Some years ago, back in the UK, I worked in marketing for one of the UK's largest independent wine retailers. As part of the job, the occasional perk included trips to wineries around the world. Almost invariably, the following rule applied: the more expensive / flash / pretentious the restaurant, the more bland / boring / overpriced the wine. I don't mean to be overly judgemental here, but it does make sense - there's not a lot of money in wine, so if serving pretend haute cuisine to tourists makes more of it, more effort should be expended in that direction. If the wine suffers as a result, so be it.

This, it has to be said, is a viewpoint borne mainly of European vineyards, and my experience in New Zealand has been slightly better, if not entirely different. The food at Mills Reef, for example, is excellent, and the wine is well above average. The food at Black Barn is terrific, and the wine is similarly great. Soljans also proves me wrong, being entirely average on both counts.

Saturday lunch is prime time for winery restaurants, most of them not opening for dinner. As such, Soljans was packed, and we were fortunate to get an outside table - inside looking, sounding and feeling like a school cafeteria. A delightful view of the car park and SH16 was spoilt only slightly by a few well-manicured vines. The menu is an interesting read, with more ingredients per dish than I have in my pantry at home, and the wine list is comprehensive, covering all the usual suspects at very reasonably ($8-9 a glass) prices.

I put myself in the hands of whoever wrote the menu, going for the recommended Pinot Gris with my Croatian salt and pepper lignja (squid), and yes, it was a pleasant glass of wine which would be perfect for someone who didn't really like Pinot Gris. No real varietal character, some fruit salad flavours and a twinge of acidity. To their credit, the bar served it at precisely the right temperature, rather than chilled to within an inch of its life.

Food-wise, my squid was excellently cooked, not rubbery in the slightest, and the spiced coating, despite there being a ton of competing flavours in there, actually worked quite well. Roughly ground spices meant for a fairly gritty mouthful though, and the heaps of dry spice did detract from the tenderness of the squid. A bit of sauce, whether integrated or to the side, would have helped here. Accompanying salad was fine, simple and fresh-tasting.

A quick straw poll around the table had similar results - all good, not great, satisfactory, not thrilling. At around $30 per head, I reckon that's about right, too. On the whole, we'd come out here to get out of the city a bit, to meet up for Saturday lunch and do the social thing, and to that end it served its purpose well. If you're visiting this winery expecting great wine or top notch cuisine though, you might well be a little disappointed.

Soljans Café
366 State Highway 16
Kumeu
Auckland

+64 (9) 4125858

Sierra, Mission Bay

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:11:00 +0000

If there's one thing New Zealand does exceptionally well with a remarkable degree of consistency, it's cafés. This is something the UK struggles with, even in these enlightened times. Every time I've visited New Zealand, and on numerous occasions since we've moved here, I've been impressed by the average standard - from the quality of the coffee (except in Esquires, always excellent) to the muffins, sandwiches and larger plates, you're almost always in good hands.

Sierra is a cookie-cutter modern New Zealand café, all clean, white lines and classic brunch-style menu. The coffee is slightly above average, the food definitely in the top quartile, with the missus' pancakes fluffy and light, with a healthy serving of lean bacon and plenty of fruit and syrup. My grill was excellently cooked throughout, with superbly rich creamed field mushrooms in addition to the usual suspects. One criticism I do have is the way they add in unadvertised ingredients - the sausages for example were actually kranskys, those little Polish sausages which I love, but not for breakfast. A difference which was worth mentioning, I think. Also with the kumara mixed in with the sautéed potatoes - I'm a fan of kumara in general, but it's a very different flavour to potato and thus shouldn't be snuck into a well-worn formula like breakfast without mentioning it on the menu.

Service was pleasant and efficient, portions were on the large side, prices were reasonable given the location, and that'll do me, thank you very much. A great place for brunch.

Sierra Café
2/33 Tamaki Drive
Mission Bay
Auckland

+64 (9) 521 0818

Deve Brasserie, Kingsland

noreply@blogger.com (thiswasme) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:52:00 +0000

I can see problems with this place. I really wanted to dislike it, purely so I'd never be the one saying "shall we go to Deve?", or "I'd highly recommend Deve". Because, you see, I've no idea how to pronounce it. Deeeeeve? Dev-ay? Dave? Neither really sounds quite right, somehow.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to get over it, because Deve is really very good (see, it's easier when you write it...). Sunday lunch here provided a startlingly good salade Niçoise, a fat slab of fresh tuna perfectly seared and rosy pink (though warm) inside, and all the attendant bits (olives, green beans, red onion, new potatoes, semi-soft boiled eggs, salad leaves) all in good order. Purists (bores) will harp on about true Niçoise only ever featuring canned tuna, but for my part I much prefer fresh, if it's decent quality and well cooked, as this was.

Very prettily presented it was too, and well-matched with a glass of Mount Dottrel rosé, whose tart strawberry flavours balanced the fattiness of the tuna and the salad dressing nicely. To be honest, the only thing about it that wasn't spot on was the service, which I'm never really that fussed about but here it did grate a little bit, probably because hard work and talent in the kitchen were being blunted by a lack of thought front-of-house. Simple things, like why would you come to take a table's order when the whole party's not there (my other half having nipped across the road for a paper)? And my personal most-hated waiter slip-up, taking away one diner's empty plate whilst the other one is still eating? So rude, so low-rent and the perfect way to spoil an otherwise great lunch.

As for the name, the staff themselves didn't know how to pronouce it. Apparently everyone says it slightly differently. Either way, get yourself down to 'that Brasserie just by Kingsland train station' and you won't be disappointed, especially if someone has a quiet word with the staff in the meantime.

Deve Brasserie

460 New North Road
Kingsland
Auckland

(09) 846 9997