Sep 17, 2019 What's On
Metro brings you a round up of the best of what Auckland has to offer for the coming week in our city’s diverse and exciting food scene.
Stone Soup x Coco’s Cantina
The fourth collaboration for Coco’s Cantina 10th birthday sees them teaming up with Stone Soup for a fundraising dinner – the last event in a series of special birthday celebrations – where for $60pp you’ll get a three-course shared dinner with friends, family and anyone else who’s keen.
Tuesday 24 September| Coco’s Cantina
Allpress Mornings with Jackie Grant and Jo Pearson
In the third event of the series, Jackie Grant (founder of HIP Group) and head chef Jo Pearson talk about running a successful multi-business operation, and what a morning at Amano Bakery looks like. HIP Group also run Ortolana, The Store, Milse, St Heliers Bay Bistro, Kohi Corner and Richmond Rd Cafe. There’s coffee and Amano pastries from 7.30am.
Thursday 19 September | Allpress Studio, 8 Drake St
SOHO Wines Spring Blossom Pop-Up
A secret pop-up bar up in The Glass Goose is open from this Friday till 18 October, welcoming spring in with a cherry blossom tree, some sugar-coasted sweet-treat food stalls (Deputy Donuts, Pie Piper and more) and speciality SOHO wine cocktails. Stop by every Friday from 4pm for some jazz and live loopings, too.
From Friday 20 September | The Glass Goose, 78 Federal St
New openings
We spy another bubble-tea adjacent trend on the rise: rice yoghurt. Yogost has opened up at 350 Queen Street, while Misyoo Rice Yoghurt have opened their doors on 17D Wakefield Street. Keep an eye out for a Metro taste test – we think this may call for one.
What We Ate This Week
Jean Teng and Alex Blackwood
Soho
I wanted very much to like Soho, but they made it sorta hard. A couple of the dishes had so much fish sauce, it made it difficult for any other flavour to push through, a shame when you’re dealing with mild flavours like crab (the crab fried rice in particular was drowning in the stuff). It was the same case for the fried snapper – an effective shortcut to salty flavour, but a total hit-you-over-the-head lack of complexity. – JT
Goodside, Smales Farm, 72 Taharoto Rd
Halo Top ice block strawberry cheesecake flavour
This not-too-sweet treat has a biscuit-like flavour and perhaps a whisper of cinnamon that reminds me of a cookie crumble ice block with an ever so slightly (unpleasant) grainy mouthfeel. They’re only 100 calories so I thought they’d taste like cardboard. – AB
Jed’s coffee extreme
Hot damn this does what it says on the tin. If you’re a fan of sweet or citrusy coffee, steer clear. This is dirty dark coffee, strong as fuck, smack you in the face with caffeine and flavour jet fuel and I am loving it. – AB
Lewis Road Creamery Ice Cream
Lewis Road have just launched some new iterations of their ice creams with brand-new recipes. I’ve only tried their chocolate truffle with ganache one so far, which is a slow burner: don’t shovel it down without letting it spread first, or you’ll miss all that chocolatey goodness. – JT
Allpress ham and cheese sandwich
I’m usually an advocate of keeping ham and cheese sandwiches basic but the addition of piquant artichoke and fresh mint made the whole thing just pop. My sandwich experience was just that little bit enlivened. – AB
8 Drake St, Freemans Bay
Cocoro . Photo: AB" class="lazy">Crayfish mormomi-miso gratin in charred shell at the Legent launch lunch at Cocoro
This isn’t on the menu at Cocoro but come official crayfish season in October, perhaps they might add it. Perhaps they won’t. The gentle sweetness of crayfish is one of the delicacies New Zealand waters do best in the world and the meat was perfectly cooked, delicate and tender. I picked the shell clean, cracked the legs open and didn’t leave a morsel. The sauce was creamy which matched well with the meat. The abundance of miso nearly overpowered the subtle, clean sweetness of the crayfish and if there’d been a smidgen less I might have died and gone to heaven right there. Not that I was complaining about what was undoubtedly the best meal of my week. – AB
Five Boroughs Pop-Up
On from now till the end of September, Wellington burger joint Five Boroughs are popping up at Ante-Social. My biggest beef with this meal was just how tiny the burger – or “Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich” – was, barely enough to scratch the surface of my appetite. The chicken itself was juicy and delicious, but I could have done with a bit more zing in the mayo (apparently spicy). Still a very good burger. – JT
152 Ponsonby Road, Ponsonby
Duck Island Ice Cream
I am on record as a fan of the Golden Syrup and Fry Bread flavour (te aihikirimi paraoa parai). Get it while you can. Yum. – JT
Isaac’s Cider 50% less sugar
Cider in the sun? To welcome in spring? Without the breakout that comes from full-sugar beverages so I can ostensibly one day participate in this mysterious, nebulous phenomenon known as hot girl summer while remaining cool? Heck yes please. – AB
Pizza Hut’s new San Francisco Style Sourdough base pizza
So the deal is that despite the fact that this base is fancy, crispy and looks very artisanal, you can swap a large base for a SFO Sourdough base for free. Honestly, do it. It’s that airy, leopard spot style of pizza which we all know is superior. – AB
