Metro — Cheap Eats 2016: The top 100

Sep 26, 2016 Cheap Eats

Click here for the 2018 Top 50 Cheap Eats

Cheap Eats 2016: The top 100

The best places serving dinner in Auckland for $20 or less.

You’ve found an overly ambitious recipe for the perfect laksa/pizza/pho and steeled yourself to scurry to the super-market in a cloud of rain, only to spend $50 on ingredients you inevitably overcook.

On nights when it’s just so bloody cold and miserable, the realisation that your ideal self — the one whose fridge is full of pre-prepared homemade stocks and pizza dough — can wait to be realised another day is one of the best things about living in Auckland. We can eat out for under $20. Remarkably well.

In compiling Metro’s Top 100 Cheap Eats for 2016, our panel of 14 judges considered the merits of almost 400 restaurants: that’s 90 more than last year. We were scrupulous. We wrestled with gut feelings in the face of damning facts — we so badly wanted more restaurants in South Auckland to blow us away, for Fish Fish to do to fish what Burger Burger has done for burgers, for Nanam to be just that bit cheaper so that we could rave once more about how fantastic it is. But rules are rules.

<!– –>

RelatedArticlesModule – Cheap eats

We were particularly strict on the $20 or under per head (without drinks) policy, noting previous years’ feedback about how relative the term “cheap” is. So with heavy hearts (but heavier pockets) we lost KK Malaysian, Nanam and Conch, among others.

The pop-up food scene is booming but by its very nature is inconsistent. Some of the street-food vendors we included in last year’s Top 100 have now matured into restaurants, like Tiger Burger. We’ve acknowledged that fluctuation this year by extracting food trucks and pop-ups from the Top 100 and naming the best among them instead.

As always, there were no quotas for types of cuisine or geographic areas, which means as many fish and chip shops are mentioned as South Indian restaurants, but unfortunately fewer Cheap Eats made the cut from the east and south than central, north and west. We particularly mourn the lack of good, cheap Vietnamese restaurants in 2016 (we want mountains of fresh herbs, not scant leaves). The incredible diversity of Chinese cuisine is represented, in a small way, by this year’s list. A notable new entry in the Top 100 — so notable, it scored in the top 10 — is Chongqing Cuisine, named after both the city and the branch of Sichuan cuisine known for being really spicy. Take it from us, the Somerville version is lip-smackingly good.

Watch: Barilla Dumpling

For the judges, one of the coolest things about researching this Top 100 has been meeting more of the people who cook the food, run the restaurants and own the joints.

The transformative process of opening an eatery, whether it involves leaving a Metro Top 50 restaurant to start your own fish and chip shop, as at Titirangi’s delightful Fish and Friends, or starting life afresh in a new country, can be profound. The dedication to representing one cuisine, dish or specialty is astounding, when you consider the effort and cost involved.

Here are 100 restaurants each worthy of a pilgrimage, regardless of the contents of your fridge.

Judging the Cheap Eats Top 100

To be considered for this list, an outlet had to be open for dinner and offer a reasonable range of options for $20 per person (or less), excluding drinks.

The judging process began with a list of all the places we knew might have a chance to make the cut, or were new and needed inspection. We then debated the merits of these places at length at a big judges’ meeting, whittling down the list by almost half. Next, we went out and ate. As always, we visited anonymously and paid for our meals. A final meeting consolidated the list, and the crucial Top 10.

The Metro judges

Our judges are food writers, cooks and bloggers with expertise ranging over many types of cuisine. Most of them write regularly online about food in Auckland.

William Chen, williamchendesign.blogspot.co.nz
Connie Clarkson
Simon Farrell-Green, eatherenow.co.nz
Alice Galletly
Michal Haines
Alice Harbourne, Food editor Metro and Paperboy, chair of the judging panel.
Lynn Huhtala, cheapeats.co.nz
Anna King Shahab, eatsbyanna.com
Delaney Mes, delaneymes.com
Courteney Peters, gatherandhunt.co.nz
Kate Richards
Alexia Santamaria, cheapeats.co.nz
Susannah Walker, Metro editor
Simon Wilson, Metro editor-at-large