Eyes Above The Waves

Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Repatriate Kiwi. Hacker.

Monday 3 April 2006

Asiana IV

One of the things that struck me when I first got back to Auckland last year was how great Auckland's Asian food is. Over the last year it has continued to impress.

Sunshine remains the best yum cha in town in my opinion, and would be ranked among the best in North America. But there are many other quality places in Auckland. Just a short walk from our house is Hee's Garden on Mount Eden Road, which despite being a lone Chinese restaurant in what's practically the suburbs, and despite being of modest size, serves quality yum cha seven days a week. The selection isn't huge but what they do, they do well. Dragon on Eliot Street in town is also good.

Recently some friends introduced us to Hansan in Mount Wellington. Among car yards and strip malls, this place offers a big menu of cheap and really excellent Vietnamese food. They also have great milkshakes. Highly recommended.

Our family has been working our way up and down the dozens of restaurants along Dominion Road. There are a lot of cheap grease pits and MSG dispensers, but there are also places where you can have a good meal at a fair price and get free soup and dessert if you're lucky. We like Love A Duck and Sum's Kitchen.

In Newmarket we really like Crazy Noodle, which along with Chinese food offers Hong Kong style Western food. Toasted sandwhiches with condensed milk, baked fish on rice in curry sauce, that sort of thing. Sunnytown and Sun World are acceptable places for yum cha or dinner. Gengy's is a fun Mongolian BBQ place but either it's going downhill or we're tiring of it.

I still haven't made it to Empress Garden, which used to be a regular stop in my university days (12 years ago ... erp). I've heard good things about Yum Cha on Quay St. And ... something ... Pearl in Newmarket, which we didn't like, has reopened as a steamboat restaurant so we'll have to check it out again. The one thing we haven't found yet is shabu shabu as good as Minnie's in Flushing, New York.


Comments

Tessa
I'd second that vote for Sunshine and also Hee's Garden (if that's the place we walked to right after climbing Mt Eden). Both excellent, and comparable to the best I've had in NYC or the South Bay. I would've liked to try Crazy Noodle --- maybe next time!