Oct 6, 2023 Metro Eats
Hi all,
As the hunt continues for Metro’s Next Top Food Editor, we’ll keep this going as best we can in an effort to lower the bar sufficiently so that the new person doesn’t feel the full weight of having to pick right up where Jean left off.
The new Metro is out this week and not wanting to overplay our hand here, but Natasha Frost of the New York Times called it a corker and also said that it is one of the world’s best magazines — get yours wherever good magazines are sold and hopefully you’ll have a similarly positive experience with it.
In case you missed it, here’s what’s inside: with progressive councillors starting to score some wins under what was anticipated to be a reactionary mayor, Hayden Donnell asks: Has Wayne Brown gone woke?
Plus: we go out and investigate Auckland’s nightlife (or in some cases, the lack thereof), with best bars (with thanks to Campari); going-out diaries from Chlöe Swarbrick, BBYFACEKILLA.mp3, Poppa.Jax & more; a look into Auckland’s drugs by Don Rowe (who’s holding and how much they paid for it); and more!
Plus, plus: we go on the campaign trail with Willie Jackson, talk to gallerist Michael Lett, drink martinis and alternative wines, start seeing a therapist, visit Imogen Taylor’s studio, look into Takutai Tarsh Kemp’s wardrobe. And, again, more.
Available from our online store (free shipping!) and wherever good magazines are sold, nationwide.
Metro x Thaiger – GIVEAWAY!
The Royal Thaiger Platter
We were invited to Thaiger last week — run by the people behind Wok Express and set up with a comfortable and very leafy fitout in the Grey Lynn shops. From the menu we’d recommend the curried prawns loaded into a pineapple and the sweet and sour pork belly was very generously proportioned and perfectly cooked. The Green Rice Prawns were also fantastic.
Pictured above is the Royal Thaiger Platter with four mains: crispy chicken cashew nuts, pad thai, papaya salad, thaiger fried rice and a selection of 6 appetisers: green rice prawns, tamarind prawns, prawn twisters, curry puffs, bbq duck spring rolls, and thai fish cakes as well as mango sticky rice. For desert: thai coconut cake, kaffir lime and coconut ice cream. And it all comes with a cocktail pitcher of White Thaiger Pina Colada AND it’s yours for FREE (normally $200!) if you win the competition on our instagram right now – just tag who you’d like to share it with in the comments and follow Metro and Thaiger.
If you’d like to go to Thaiger, and you should, bookings by phone: 09 360 0695 or email: thaigerauckland@gmail.com
What’s Happening
Our friends at Stella Artois are returning with another Bon Appetit with Stella Artois! – this year it’s at Uno – the new space from the people behind Duo (Metro’s cafe of the year!) with Jordan and Sarah creating a cinematically inspired immersive evening with which sounds like a nice change of pace from the usual – more information on Metro social channels as it comes to hand!
East St Hall has a new menu, with help from Dan Pinto of Passa Passa.
Jungle 8 has opened in the Elliot Stables – the fitout looks quite intense with a dark space housing a bunch of ceiling mounted screens and lightboxes – food looks to be the now ubiquitous cuminy skewers and a lot of banh mi varietals. Looks like probably the same people as Lucky 8 in Ponsonby.
Peter Gordon has a Delisio Degustation menu at Homeland on 18 and 25 October in service of the new flash flavours of Delisio chips. We assume it will be quite crunchy, but Jean sampled it before she left and seemed pretty happy with the whole thing. She bought a bag of the jalapeno popper chips into the office and we can confirm their yumness.Tickets here.
Baby G is open in their new space in Avondale from this Sunday.
Butter Baby is now open in Westgate for donuts and coffee.
Toast to Toast a new Korean Toasty place is now open in Sylvia Park.
Novelty Items – This month in Fast Food.
Our monthly wrap of comings and goings in fast food menus in Auckland.
At McDonalds, the most enduring fast food promotion of them all, Monopoly, continues. I have personally abandoned my quest for prizes as its not immediately clear which menu items qualify for a game piece on the drive through menu and the crushing disappointment when you go looking on your burger box for your property card and not finding it is just not worth the slim chance of winning a berth on a P&O cruise. The only new item advertised on the menu is the Biscoff McFlurry which was there last month. I tried it and it’s ok but suffers from the general McFlurry issue of being just a hunk of soft serve once you get through the (admittedly delicious) biscoff topping, which doesn’t seem to permeate it as much as some of the other flavours.
Meanwhile, at KFC they have launched Hot & Crispy Boneless — in a 4 pack for $9.99, and a boneless box for 12.99 with 3 pieces, and the standard KFC load out of chips/roll/drink/potato and gravy. Oddly, in a sign perhaps of an advertising agency left to run amok, it’s launched with a bone themed jewellery collection of pieces from Metro neighbour Nick von K — six different pieces, for sale at $1299 each. Three of the pieces (all the ones that had pearls on them) have mystifyingly already sold leaving only three for you, should you want them.
The pick of this month’s deals is the Kentucky Lunch (2pcs orig. recipe/1 wing/chips/potato and gravy/reg drink) $11.99 (PLU321) and the All Star Snack 1 orig recipe, 1 wing, chips — $6.99 (PLU359) both in store only.
At Burger King there are signs of a total capitulation in the face of MONOPOLY sitting out October with no new products of note this month — Royal Perks members are still getting 2 cheeseburgers for $6.50 while in the King’s Coupons you can get 1 creamy mayo, 1 whopper junior and a large fries for $12 (B63)
Wendy’s, also powerless in the face of Monopoly are still pushing the Teriyaki baconators. I find myself reluctant to try these for some reason and I don’t know why. Might be the font still but I feel like these guys are normally very good with chicken and this should be good.
Nothing new to report over at Pizza Hut but The One Box still looks like the best buying in all of fast food this week at the inflation busting price of $5.99. Also quiet is Dominos — perhaps everyone is keeping their powder dry for a big early summer push next month. They are still not able to get to Pizza Hut’s low low price on the personal lunch box. I did fail to mention their Taste of India range last week which includes Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka, Paneer and Garlic Naan pizzas as well as a five pack of butter chicken wings. If you got the chance to try Paradise ’s pizza place in Sandringham before it closed you’ll know how good these COULD be but there’s just no way they’ll be that good. Rest In Power to that beautiful, perfect little place. Gone too soon.
At Burger Fuel the menu is static this month but if you are ordering online they seem to have done some tinkering to their transaction window — be warned it was a little buggy for me yesterday, the credit card payment failed three times, then the direct bank transaction went through but it didn’t send the order to the store or send the confirmation email to me. The people in the store were pretty good about it (seemed like it’d been happening a bit) but it took a long time to sort out. Maybe just phone your order in until they have it sussed.
Taco Bell this month has a pretty gross looking beefy fries burrito for $6.99 which seems to be exactly what it sounds like if you think it sounds like a pile of mince and chips with cheese sauce wrapped in a soft shell. For $4.99 you can also get a pretty nice looking three pack of Cinnabels – wee round fried cinnamon donuts stuffed with cream cheese.
Henry has been frequenting Nene Chicken – the new Korean chain on Lorne st — they have a revolving set of opening deals and he walked out of one visit with a very cool keychain. It’s quickly become his six-year-old son’s favourite restaurant. There are a fairly overwhelming number of flavour and spice options here, so if you are looking for a solid place to start he recommends the kimchi burger and the bulgogi chicken (the wings are a better deal than the pieces) and there’s usually a bit of a line so you do have a bit of time to think about it while you are waiting.
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