A Debt To Pleasure: Tauranga

Showing posts with label Tauranga. Show all posts

Monday, 28 February 2022

Dish of The Week #2 - Wood-Fired Courgettes @ Solera

Solera - 165 Maunganui Road, Mount Maunganui, 3116, NZ

- Wood-Fired Courgette -

mint dressing, spicy whipped tofu, almonds, edamame

$24

Who would have thought a couple of courgettes could be the highlight of a meal? Not me as a rampant meat-eater! But these courgettes at Solera were sensational, perfect from a light grilling and with a clever mix of textures and flavours sitting on top. They went very quickly!

Friday, 25 February 2022

Lantern - a great new Papamoa restaurant!

LANTERN

Cuisine: Southeast Asian

Address: 20 Domain Rd, Papamoa

Phone: 07-262 3113

Website

Drinks: Licensed

Reservations: recommended

I'm a bit out of touch with Papamoa restaurants which is why I missed the arrival of Lantern, the recent Southeast Asian restaurant and bar occupying a space that I believe once used to house the garden bar of the Papamoa Tavern. It is a lovely spot and surprisingly large.

Here it is, easy to miss from Domain Road but spacious inside with airy white wooden buildings and an outdoor-indoor space that also includes (unseen in the pic) a courtyard bar with leaners to the left and a hidden seated area with tables for two amongst the palms round to the right.

Service was young, friendly and informed and we had a light lunch. But first of all we had the restaurant's two signature cocktails, both tributes to legendary Asian bars. There are also another half-dozen bespoke cocktail offerings and a small but well-chosen and interesting winelist.

JUNGLE BIRD (From the Aviary Bar in Malaysia) dark rum, Campari, pineapple, lemon $18
SINGAPORE SLING (from the Raffles Hotel) gin, cherry liqueur, Cointreau, DOM Benedictine, grenadine, pineapple, lime, bitters $20

The menu is divided into "Garden", "Small Plates", "Curries" and "Large Plates" though the division seems a little arbitrary. I couldn't really work out what constituted "Garden" (which includes the likes of Crab Lettuce Cups / Avocado Summer Rolls / Prawn Papaya Salad / Soft Shell Crab Salad / Wok-tossed Mushrooms) but it hardly matters. Most things were priced between $20 and $35 and I notice the curries all leaned Thai with the menu also encompassing Chinese and Vietnamese flavours.

Duck Pâté - Warm Banh Mi, Umeboshi jelly $8
Tiger Prawn Toast - Sriracha cheese sauce, sweet chilli, green rice flake, turmeric sourdough $20
Cured Kingfish - Coconut, apple, fish roe, coriander stalk, rice, nahn jim, crisps (GF* DF) $21
Duck Fried Rice - 63 degree egg, confit duck leg, sate, smoked duck fat, corn, pickle (GF* DF) $24

Monday, 21 February 2022

Dish of The Week #1 - Tiger Prawn Toast @ Lantern

Lantern - 20 Domain Road, Papamoa 3118, NZ

— Tiger Prawn Toast —

Friday, 21 January 2022

Starting 2022 with dinner at Solera

SOLERA Wine Bar

Cuisine: Modern New Zealand, sharing

Address: 165 Maunganui Rd, Mount Maunganui

Phone: 07-572 0246

Website

Drinks: Extensive interesting wine list, cocktails

Reservations: Recommended

OK. It's been a while since I blogged. Time to saddle up again. The combination of Covid, lack of time and general impecunity has made it difficult to eat out much in the past few months. But my son Cohen is leaving for Australia (yes - I know - not my choice!) and a very generous friend took us to Solera the other night. I am indescribably grateful to her and it was a terrific meal, so I thought it was time to get that ol' mojo back - let me tell you about it...

Before we start though, you should like/follow the Debt To Pleasure Facebook page. That way when I stop posting these blogs to Facebook groups you'll still know about them. Here we go: A Debt To Pleasure Facebook Page

OK. There were four of us eating and this is what we had.

Snacks

Baked Oyster - mornay, ham, chive oil 6
Aubergine & Tomatoes- avocado mousse, pinenuts, rice paper crisp 6
Cured & Smoked Salmon- nori, ponzu gel, lime 8
Beef Tartare - hand diced eye fillet, spicy miso, sourdough 8

Thoughts: The salmon was a small beautifully-formed piece of modern sushi-art. The pic doesn't do its loveliness justice and it tasted just as good.

The aubergine dish was like a posh guacamole - it had pinenuts and other treats but essentially tasted of avo and tomato. Very refreshing.

The tartare was very different from the previous tartare here, with a softer texture. I guess you'd call it very fancy mince on toast. It tasted great but might disappoint those wanting more texture from their beef.

The oysters? The oysters were outstanding. The cheese sauce was brilliant, the oysterts just cooked and still fresh and salty, and the combo excellent. I could have eaten a LOT of them.

From there we moved to every small plate on the menu:

Small Plates

Grilled Australian Prawns - paua roe, sambol mayonnaise 21
Cured Snapper - nam jim, tomato, tapioca crisp 23
Chargrilled Octopus- fermented lettuce, apple ssamjang, tomally 22
Smoked Venison Tataki- kawakawa berries, caramelised garlic, yuzu, bonito 25
Lamb Ribs- rendang, pumpkin seed dukkah, beetroot labnah 25
BBQ Duck Leg- szechuan glaze, sultana puree, cucumber salad 28

Thoughts: once again everything was excellent. I had one single reservation which was about using tomato with cured snapper. Perhaps it's just me but I found the combo slightly disconcerting.

The lambs ribs - meaty, tender - and the duck were both pretty perfect, and the prawns very nice.

We didn't initially order the octopus and I generally avoid eating these intelligent creatures (irrational though I know that is), but since Cohen is in hospo and was about to leave the country friends in the kitchen sent it over as an extra. And - despite my reservations - it was incredible, the most tender I have ever tried and with a rich crisp charred coating and complex accompanying flavours. Really good.

But it's that other dish that fascinates me. It is such a cool minimalist presentation and the last thing you'd regularly expect from a tataki, with the meat and accompaniments all hidden under a scattering of bonito. It looks like nothing but tastes so intricate and balanced and reminds me of some of the early food from Attica in Melbourne. It is simply sensational. And that minimalist look impresses me so much, here's another more close-up pic...

We also had one of the Vegetable Plates:

Purple Kumara- hoisin, peanut, sesame, pickled shallots 28

It was pretty as a pictures and immediately devoured by the kumera-lovers at the table.

As you'll notice we ordered no Large Plates. We wanted as much variety as possible and those big plates do fill you up.

We also drank quite a lot of wine from the very interesting winelist but if I start listing it all here this blog will go on forever. There is much I would recommend on the list and Nick keeps it updated with interesting and unusual Kiwi wines.

All in all, as I've mentioned before, I can't recommend Solera highly enough for those happy to share food. I guess you could go there and not share but I'm sure it wouldn't be nearly as much fun. And you wouldn't get to try so many different exciting flavours...

Sunday, 27 June 2021

An Italian Bite at The Mount's Alpino

ALPINO

Cuisine: Italian

Address: 16 Pacific Ave, Mount Maunganui

Phone: 07-827 5595

Website

Drinks: Licensed

Reservations: recommended weekend evenings

I must confess right up that I've only ever previously eaten at one Italian restaurant at The Mount. And it was this one, a couple of years back when it was still called the Clarence Test Kitchen, a "warm-up" operation while Clarence Bistro and Bar Centrale, now inhabiting the old post office building in Willow Street, were still under construction.

It is still owned by Noel Cimadom, the man behind Clarence, who also has the original Alpino in Cambridge. There are obvious crossovers with the menu here and at Centrale though the food here is a little more straightforward.

Since I'm a big fan of both Clarence and Centrale and happened to be over at the Mount I popped in for a quick bite. Amazingly, despite the generally rainy times, we struck the one sunny day in June and found the place packed and humming. We even got to sit outside (hence the washed-out looking pics. Apologies for yet another failure by me in the photographic department!).

Not my pic! It was packed when we were there!

(also not my pic - great reflection - very clever!)

The menu is quite concise (see the bottom of the page) - half a dozen snacks, half a dozen entrees and half a dozen "secondi", plus pizzas. The mains give an idea of the general direction - eggplant parmigiana, pappardelle with a beef ragu, spaghettini with clams, porchetta - though there are also some modern twists. There is an impressive list of Italian wines, but I chose:

The Landing Vino Rosso, Bay of Island $13 (150ml)

It's the house blend of the Northland winery and was excellent, firm-bodied, well-rounded and smooth without being too fruity. Very good. I note with interest that they offer two glass sizes both here and at the Mount's newest wine bar Solera. Except at Solera the two pours are 100ml and 150ml while here they are 150ml and 250ml. I can't help thinking that at a full third of a bottle a 250ml pour is a serious-sized glass of wine!

We got taking to Chef Scott who was kind enough to offer us a couple of "specials" that he was preparing for evening service, and we had a couple of starters from the menu. Since I was being treated by my generous son I didn't note the prices (or the names) of the new dishes - the others are from the menu.

Snapper Crudo - Pickled Kohlrabi, Oyster Mayo, Green Apple, Bush Fennel $22
Carpaccio Di Manzo - Seared Beef Carpaccio, Rocket, Swiss Brown Mushroom, Shaved Pecorino $21
Deep-Fried Gnocchi, Aioli
Mozarella & Herb-Stuffed Tortellini, Pumpkin Puree, Crisp Sage Leaves

And the difference from Centrale was immediately obvious, with a more rustic approach to presentation and simpler flavours. But they were still spot on. Case in point: the crudo was less sophisticated than the current offering at Centrale but the sweetness of the apple chimed beautifully and the tiny dusting of fennel (invisible in my crap pics of course!) lifted the whole thing without overwhelming the fish - it was a small touch but just brilliant.

The carpaccio was reliably good, very thin, a proper carpaccio rather than just some sliced seared beef which is often the way. And the tortellini was terrific - always good to enjoy well made fresh pasta - the pumpkin puree silky as all get-up.

But the real eye-opener was that gnocchi. Talk about great beer-drinking snacks! Or wine-drinking snacks since these seemed a bit flash for beer. Just great. Apparently they're coated in some rice flour before being deep-fired but I don't know why everyone doesn't do this to gnocchi. I can see a whole trend arising with differently-flavoured gnocchi and different dipping sauces. This could be the new Italian food wave!

OK. So obviously I didn't try very much of the menu. But I'd be happy to have a crack at everything there. The service was efficient and friendly, and the small wooden room has a great intimate vibe and the food and wine are effortlessly everyday Italian. I like it.

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click to enlarge

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Master Kong arrives at The Mount!

MASTER KONG

Cuisine: Pan-Asian "street food"

Address: 2/217 Maunganui Rd, Mount Maunganui

Phone: 07-572 0698

Website

Drinks: Pan-Asian-inspired cocktails, wine, beer etc

Reservations: Probably for weekend yum cha lunch...

Pan-Asian "street food" is the flavour of the day. The trend became fashionable in Auckland and Wellington at least 5 years back so it's about time it reached Tauranga. Macau, still on The Strand, got on board immediately. Now, years later, everyone is following...

Even Frosty & Fox, only opened recently at the Mount, has already dropped most of their signature "hot dawgs" for Asian "street food". I put that in inverted commas because I've spent a lot of time on Asian streets and the way the term is used round here is pretty random. Adding the word "street" to your Asian food style is currently great for marketing - presumably it makes everything sound more "authentic" - though not necessarily for accuracy.

Now the Mount has swapped one Pan-Asian eatery for another. Bamboo has gone, Master Kong is here and looking to be bigger, bolder and better. Given how exciting Bamboo promised to be at the start, we'll wait and see how it works out but first signs are good: the new operators (the Wellington Hospitality Group who also own Latitude 37 at the Mount) have smartly tweaked the courtyard that joins Master Kong to the adjoining restaurant/bar Madam Sunset and have created a very cool under-cover space with huge potential. This could well be the Mount's hospo hot-spot for summer...

the courtyard as seen from outside Madam Sunset

more of the same as that other one...

Madam Sunset, next door, is Tiki bar-themed and you can order food and drinks from both places anywhere in the courtyard. We had a couple of Madam Sunset cocktails later and had a look at what looked like a relatively short but fascinating Polynesian-and-beyond menu (Spiced Roasted Duck Nachos anyone?). But we stuck to Master Kong food - there is much to try and despite wanting most of it there were only two of us so we settled on three small and one larger plate. And, before that, a couple of cocktails.

Crouching Tiger
Tokyo Thyme - Roku gin, Mandarin Napoleon liqueur, watermelon, melon & thyme syrup $18.5
Crouching Tiger - El Jimador tequila, yellow chartreuse, raspberry and mango puree, Vietnamese mint and lime juice $16.50

Tokyo Thyme

Both were interesting and slightly unusual (I say that as definitely a Good Thing). And surprisingly subtle. They did not taste noticeably alcoholic and I would call both of them "pleasant" rather than anything that would knock your socks off. I notice both bars also do "Taptails", cheaper pre-mixed cocktails on tap. Word is that they're pretty strong...

RARE BEEF TATAKI truffle ponzu, rice crisp, furikake (gf) $15

POPCORN PRAWNS Taiwanese spices, yuzu mayonnaise, cured egg yolk (df) $16
CHEESEBURGER SPRING ROLL parmesan cheese, burger sauce (df) $15
FIRECRACKER CHICKEN sizzling lemongrass chicken in firecracker sauce, compressed pineapple with steamed rice (df) $30

This was a really interesting combo of things, very varied in style. There is a three chilli heat rating guide (light touch / punch to the guts / KO) of which the chicken was rated the full three. Others not at all.

The star for me was the Tataki. It was a noticeably more delicate dish as the picture shows but the flavours were sensational, the beef lovely, the truffle ponzu really redolent of truffle and the crackers a great accompaniment. 10/10.

On the other hand, the prawns and spring rolls were simply enjoyable deep fried snacks. Of course we had to try the combination of cheeseburger and spring roll. Some things you just gotta do. And they're exactly what your mind imagines - a meaty burger patty and cheese inside a crisp spring roll wrapper - junk food at its finest! And they did indeed come with "burger sauce" (and a chewy parmesan wafer). The popcorn prawns were crisp, not at all greasy, and slightly plain; a good snack while drinking.

And the chicken? Three chilli heat? They warned us and bloody hell it was hot. To my surprise it was more of a stew/stir-fry with green vegetables and mushrooms. I was expecting something crunchy. Behind the blinding heat there was a definite hint of Sichuan spicing but the chilli heat was different, a dry heat which suggested somewhere else - Indonesia maybe? The iron plate was also deceptive - it looked modest but was quite a large portion. Frankly it was too hot for me and I'm pretty good with this stuff; I'm glad I tried it but once was enough. Maybe if you were drinking a lot of beer? Perhaps it will become a challenge for those young and foolish enough to be so inclined...

After that we thought we should check out the cocktails at Madam Sunset since the bar already comes with good word of mouth.

Lava Guava - Lusty Lovers Larios gin and St Germain imbibe overproof rum and sacrifice guavas and passionfruit to the volcano gods $16
Banana Daiquiri - Hold on to your bananas! Havana rum, banana syrup and demerara throw some fresh limes and bananas around at a party. It's a slippery slope. $16

I can't speak for the Lava Guava since I didn't try it but after some initial issues with the crushed ice I believe it was good. The daiquiri was lovely, a beautiful balance of lime sour and banana sweet with a solid underpinning of rum. I liked it a lot.

click to enlarge...

OK. There we go. I obviously need to try more of the food. I don't see the menu on-line yet so I've run it off below, plus the cocktails one too. Why not? I suspect these two joints are going to go off in a major way, with lots of good ideas: the shared yum cha approach at weekend lunches is one of the winners, while both restaurants also have dishes that are lit on fire (a burger and a dessert in case you were wondering!). I'm looking forward to my next visit already...

click to enlarge

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Wednesday, 16 June 2021

Solera: Truffle Cheesecake and more!

SOLERA Wine Bar

Cuisine: Modern New Zealand, sharing

Address: 165 Maunganui Rd, Mount Maunganui

Phone: 07-572 0246

Website

Drinks: Extensive interesting wine list, cocktails

Reservations: Recommended

Having just two plates of food to eat and a small glass of wine I'm not sure whether this merits a full blog entry or just a quick Facebook post but since the two plates were as good as anything I've tasted all year I decided to write it up here.

Solera has a new menu. It actually has a continually new menu since bits are being tweaked all the time. But since I went there last there have been substantial changes and, once again, I wanted to eat everything on the menu!

I was lucky to have half an hour to kill at the Mount so popped in because of a recent Facebook post of theirs about having a full range of Central Otago's Te Kano wines and, specifically, their Fume Blanc de Noir by the glass.

That's a Pinot Noir that's been made without skin contact (so is white, the "Blanc" bit) and then barrel aged (for the "Fume" bit). This was an experiment and they only made one barrel this year. And it was a lovely wine, smoky from the barrel and a complex mix of fruit spiky slightly citrusy fruit flavours, a million miles away from the red fruit of a Pinot Noir.

But it was the food that blew me away. The first thing I had was:

Cured Venison - paua, quince, oyster mushroom $20

All I can say is "WOW". Sorry the pic is a bit crappy - the colours were a lot better in real life! But the flavours... salty unctuous venison, smoky charred mushroom, perfectly chewy paua, and a quince gel just slightly sweet and slightly sharp. Add in a little orange flash and a couple of slightly peppery nasturtium leaves. In credible. Every single thing on the plate was delicious and together they were simply sensational. I can't rave enough about this - all I want to do is go and eat it again!

Then, on the recommendation of a friendly American woman who was also perched at a bar stool around the kitchen counter and who seemed to love the food and know what she was talking about, I had something I'd never have even considered, especially when I wanted to eat pretty much everything else on the menu - cheesecake! Or to be more accurate:

Basque Cheesecake - yuzu, truffle, parmesan $14

And it has to be a bout the ugliest dessert around, looking like nothing more or less than an oozy block of brie or camembert. But the taste... I can honestly say I've never tasted anything quite like it. There was truffle, heady strong truffle, so strong I could still taste it hours later ( yes, I say that as a good thing!), there was sharp parmesan, there was a hint of citrus from the yuzu and there was a sweet crisp layer of bruleed sugar, the sweetness of which was amazing with the truffle and parmesan. The cheesecake itself had a texture somewhere between a souflee and a cake, delicate and melting in the mouth. Incredible.

So that's it. Two dishes both of which astounded me. I want to go back immediately. Since the menu changes so frequently I'm not not sure the current one is on line. In case not I am happy to share it here. Click on it to enlarge. I can't recommend it highly enough.

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Friday, 4 June 2021

RESTAURANT REVIEW INDEX JUNE 2021

AUGUST 2020 - MAY 2021

At the start of each month I'll post a current index of restaurant reviews. Some may obviously be a little on the older side. Nearly all the restaurants are in the Tauranga region (except where marked).

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