Ming Garden Chinese Restaurant (Te Anau)

My apologies for the absence. I’ve been away for these reasons (1) laziness, (2) irresponsibility, (3) work, (4) recent holidays and (5) lack of material.

Anyway, a quick post for today. I was at Te Anau for the long weekend. I had a craving for some Chinese food (it was one of the very few Chinese restaurants there). I ordered the roast pork fried rice for $9. It was a shocking dish, the crappiest dish I’ve had. It was low quality. But I guess I can’t complain too much since it’s in the middle of nowhere.

But to be honest, make your own fried rice if you’re craving it in Te Anau. Ming Garden does a shocking piece of work.

Neighbour’s Restaurant

Neighbour’s Restaurant is not affiliated to the Australian drama – but it’s quite a nice place to go to . I found this restaurant next to Pho Vietnamese Restaurant on Lorne St. They are located “underground” but have a menu just before you go in. The menu with pricing helps differentiate if it’s cheap or expensive compared to places nearby *ahem*. I have to say, it’s kinda cheap, $10 or less unlike some places. =)

A couple of dishes were sampled on a cold winter night:

Pork Chop on Rice.

Sesame Oil Chicken Noodle Soup.

The place serves Taiwanese cuisine and first impression, I like it. In terms of pricing, it’s cheap and flavour-wise, it’s on-par with another one of my favourites, T-Mark. The place is also clean and green (I mean literally).

My rating is a biased 9/10.

Golden Barbeque Noodle House

You’re thinking, doesn’t this bozo ever go out of the CBD to eat? I say, yes! Here’s a place at Eden Valley. Actually, it’s still relatively near town.

It appears very popular, I couldn’t find a place to sit for some reason. It’s your typical Chinese restaurant. I think it used to be called Max or something. Samples below:

Soya Chicken and Roast Pork on Rice

Wat Tan Hor

As usual, I couldn’t remember the price of the dishes but it’s reasonable. I thought the dishes were great tasting. I highly recommended it. My rating is 8/10. Give it a go.

Deli & Noodle Bar @ Sky City Casino

The Deli and Noodle Bar at the Sky City Casino is always an all-time favourite for me. It opens late, and there’s plenty of pokies and slot machines to keep you entertained for the whole night – that is if you’re a gambler.

On a late winter night, I was trying to figure out where to go for dinner and decided upon the casino as I haven’t been there for ages. The Deli and Noodle Bar isn’t exactly a quiet place to eat and lighting isn’t that great. Also, your meals don’t get served to you. I decided to try the Noodle Bar since I had fond memories of the beef brisket. Samples below:

Beef Brisket Hor Fun.

Soya Chicken on Rice.

For most of the meals, you have a choices of either rice, rice noodles, egg noodles etc. The soya chicken cost $10.50, while the beef brisket cost $8.50. So, price-wise, it’s standard. Flavour-wise, the soya chicken is tasty, while the beef brisket needed extra flavours from the chilli. Overall, it was quite a good meal for the time frame as well as flavour. My rating is 7/10.

The other thing you could always try is the Deli which has various Western options. But the best way to utilise the Deli is to register for the Action Card (which is free I think). That way you can get discounts on meals.

Hulu Cat

Hulu Cat.

The last time I’ve been to this place was like 2007. That was a while ago and for a good reason. They’re located on Anzac Ave, near the Beach Road end. First, they seriously need to clean up their toilets cause I can smell pee like 3 metres away from the toilet door. Secondly, the damn place is cursed with no parking. I think they’ve removed like 90% of parking spots on Anzac Ave, so good luck to those who wants to “drive” to Hulu Cat. A couple of sampled drinks:

Wheat Tea with Pearl.

Mango Slush with Pearl.

I have to admit, their drinks are great provided you don’t let them go nuts on the syrup. What I’ve learnt, is that you have to request for less sugar for all these milk tea drinks. The staff just love to pile on the syrup. I wasn’t taking note of the price of these drinks but I think they were around $6. From what I remember, it wasn’t expensive or cheap, so pretty much standard price.

Anyway, they are famous for their pearl tea and quality is good. Environment is great and cosy, as long as you don’t sit near the toilet. Otherwise, a pain in the bum to go for a drink because of lack of parking around the area.

My rating is a favourable 8/10.

Royal Buffet

A random one for the month. I went to this place with friends and was quite disappointed.

Royal Buffet is a newly opened restaurant, located on Short Street in Newmarket, opposite T Mark.  To compete with the neighbouring restaurants, for instance $10 pizza/pasta/salad lunch at Archie’s, Royal Buffet offers $12 Buffet lunch and $25 main buffet. Not a bad move.

I am not a fan of buffets, and I think I’ll never be. But decided to give it a try because the main buffet is advertised as having top chefs cooking the best cuisine and providing a variety of food. The cost was $25 per person. The initial look of the place looked OK, but realised it was below average and with limited variety after spending 15 mins in there. The items were not very good – chicken curry hardly has any meat, no real fish in their sushi variety, low quality instant coffee. Some of the stuff were alright, for example miso soup, frice rice, deep fried squid and japanese cold noodle.

The place truly lacked variety and for the amount you pay, it’s not worth it. Also, during dining there was a very unhappy couple who complained about the food (which is fair). But poor guys, they got chased out.

My rating is a 0/10. It’s crap. Not worth it at all.

Sichuan Steamboat and Chinese Restaurant

I am not a big Sichuan fan. It takes a while for me to get use to the strong flavours from this special province. And they’re big on steamboat for some apparent reason.  Anyway, I found this restaurant in Panmure quite recently, thanks to a friend who was seriously into steamboat. Since then, I’ve been back a couple of times.

Some of my favourite dishes are shown below:

  

Sichuan Style Spicy Diced Chicken.

 

Fried Lamb with Fennel Seeds.

 

Sichuan Style Egg Plant.

 

Sichuan Style Boiled and Fried Pork.

I have to admit there is nothing but praises for this place and apparently it has got affliation with HP8 in Newmarket. The meat dishes were all $18, and the egg plant is $16. My recommendation is the egg plant. The other 3 meat dishes are very good. I’ve also tried the steamboat which is also not bad.

My rating for this place is a rare 9.5/10. The restaurant’s price, flavour and authenticity accounting for its high rating. I highly recommend.

ATT Cafe

In between two highly-rated places (Mentatz and Pho Vietnamese) on Lorne Street is the ATT Cafe.  A quick glance at this cafe, it looks more like a canteen. I thought I’d give this place a try, no harm when you’re hungry and sick of going to the same old place. A couple of dishes were sampled as shown below:

Deep Fried Chicken Drumstick Noodle Soup.

Garlic Gravy Pork on Rice.

Both dishes cost $9.50, which is quite cheap. The noodle soup did taste a bit plain, I wish there some kinda sauce that could boost up the flavour. However, the rice wasn’t bad. I can’t really say much, because it was just a meal. Not gourmet or anything at all. Apparently, they do deliveries within the city.

A rating is hard to justify, but it’s average. Not bad but not good, 7/10.

Tang’s Soup Cafe

The Easter weekend is finished but I have another day off. That gives me a bit of time to talk about this cafe I “bumped” into recently – Tang’s Soup Cafe. It’s near the roundabout in Royal Oak.

It’s a strange place because initially it appears as if there is no English menu. But rest assure, it does. The good thing about the place is the amount of variety and it opens late – so good supper option. The variety comes with a price, not all dishes are great and it really depends what you get. Anyway, some of the dishes tried are shown below:

 Chinese Sausage and Dried Duck on Rice Served in a Wooden Cask.

Steam Chicken with Kei Chee and Red Dates on Rice.

Steam Chicken with Hot and Spice Sauce on Rice.

Quail Braised in Chuan Bei.

The wooden cask dish is $12.50. The steam chicken dishes are $8. The soup is $11.50. Of all the dishes above, I prefer the steam chicken dish. It’s tasty and darn cheap. However, the other two dishes are not bad and more specialty (I think). It is worth to experiment on. The wooden cask dish is kinda salty for me because of the dried duck.  The soup is quite good and apparently has health benefits. But it’s kinda expensive for $11.50. Again it may be because it’s special. Someone can educate me.

Anyway, I am pleasantly surprised with this place. I think the food overall is good and very unique. It’s also a great supper hangout, and well done to them for opening late-ish for the night owls.

My rating is 9/10. Unique dishes, opens late and good value for money (mostly). Worth a try.

Chalin Tea House

A quick post during Easter. Happy holidays everyone.

Chalin Tea House is on Dominion Road, formerly known as Easy Way. There’s always a Beamer outside the place – most likely the owner who also works there. Anyway, I hardly go to this place because it’s kinda far. I ordered the Honey Dew Milk Tea with Pearl for $5.90.

Honey Dew Pearl Milk Tea.

My rating is 7/10. It’s too powdery for me. No actual “tea” taste. But I know this place is quite a popular one, so didn’t get too biased.

Sichuan in Remuera Restaurant

The restaurants in surburbia land are getting more and more, especially in Auckland. Maybe it’s always been like that? Those were the days when the closest thing to Chinese food near your house was the odd takeaway next to the Dairy. On top of selling fried rice and random Chinese food, they also sell fish & chips.

The Sichuan in Remuera Restaurant is one of those, except more decent and formal. It’s situated behind the Remuera Shops (off Remuera Road), but you’d have to drive to the back. It’s relatively hard to spot unless you know the area well. Anyway, I heard things about this place and decided to go.

Three dishes were sampled as shown below:

Honey Pork Chop .

Mapo Tofu.

Sizzling Fillet Steak in Chinese style.

Overall, the experience was somewhat disappointing. Perhaps because I didn’t try the traditional Sichuan food. The menu was littered with every single “standard” Chinese food you can think of. Nothing in the menu stood out. But surprisingly, there were people going in and out.

The Honey Pork Chop was $18, and it was quite average tasting. The Mapo Tofu was slightly better costing $18. The Sizzling Fillet Steak in Chinese Style is $22. Clearly, the food was quite average (for me anyway) but it wasn’t bad tasting. If there was a Sichuan Restaurant, I’d prefer HP8 on Nuffield Street.

My rating is 7/10. Average. If you’re hungry and near the area, go for it. Lai Lai Noodle House is a much better alternative, but I don’t think they do dinner.

Diamond Takeaway

I have been a bit neglectful recently. Work has been keeping me really busy.

Anyway, it’s a random post today (Isn’t it always random?). Diamond Takeaway is one of those local chinese takeout for the Greenlane/Remuera area. I’ve always enjoyed some of their dishes, and one great thing you can do at this place – you can watch them cook. By memory, I think they have up to 6 woks. So up to 6 cooks simultaneously frying the rice, noodles etc. 

It’s quite amazing how the arrangement is at Diamond takeaway. A group of cooks that churn out takeouts like an assembly line. They just look at the orders and start cooking with ingredients all ready and prepared at their disposal.

A couple of dishes were ordered during a night of hunger. The combination fried rice and steak Hor Fun.

Combination Meat Fried Rice.

Steak Hor Fun.

My impression, a reasonably clean place and clearly designed to just make money. I do pity the cooks, they look a bit bored and depressed, but what can you do if all night you’re cooking fried rice etc. I hope they’re getting above minimum wage! =)

In terms of taste and price, it’s not bad. $15 for the fried rice and $14 for the steak hor fun. Generally, all their dishes are around $15 for a very large portion (enough for 2). The dishes were delicious but during the cooking, you can see them add a teaspoon of white powder (MSG!!). Apparently, their chips won an award for least fat (can someone confirm this?).

My rating, 8/10. Good to try once in a while. At times, I do enjoy the odd fried rice. They do make ‘em good!