A new Korean chicken joint on Wharf Street

THE CHOOK NOOK

Cuisine: Korean, chicken-focused 

Address: 15 Wharf Street, Tauranga

Phone: 07-571 2000

Website

Drinks: small list of beer, wine & "Korean Special" 

Reservations: probably unnecessary

And so it came that, unsurprisingly, Momo Teppan-Yaki has gone from Wharf Street. It was always hard to see how the teppanyaki concept was going to work on a street now geared towards al fresco dining. In its place, next to Pho Vina, comes The Chook Nook, self-described as "A Korean Chicken Kitchen".

I must confess to little knowledge of Korean chicken kitchens but this wasn't exactly what I was expecting. First impressions were good: the service was courteous and efficient and the room bright and clean with a couple of funky touches, including a light at the door which will surely look groovy at night.

The menu itself is very short. There are three types of deep fried chicken, which each come in one size with sides, and a platter of all three with sides. There's also braised chicken, spicy chicken stew, and spicy stir-fried chicken. Each of these come in sizes for 2 or 4 people. And there's Bibimpap (described as "rice mixed with vegetables") and Korean Chicken Soup. That's it. There's a menu pic at the bottom if you're curious.

I have no issues with a small menu done well, though to be honest I was actually expecting something more like Nandos or suchlike with many options to order pieces of chicken in various-sized portions... But, like I say - not a Korean food expert! Cohen and I shared a couple of things to introduce ourselves to the food...

• Sweet & Spicy Fried Chicken     $21.50
• Korean Chicken Soup     $19.50

And being, as stated, inexpert, I don't think either of us had quite grasped the nature and extent of the sides. For the fried chicken they were: potato salad, pickled daikon/carrot, green chilli, cornichons, chips with 2 sauces and a bread roll. It also came with salad and coleslaw. 

 

 

The verdict (from two avid fried chicken lovers)? The pickled veges were very perky, the egg salad was very mild, the chips were better than the chips at KFC and the chicken... well, kinda fantastic really! Crispy as all get-up with a solid crunchy coating, slathered in a sweet sticky slightly spicy sauce (we went medium). It was really first class chicken. I got to take home the few leftovers and can confirm that it's pretty damn good cold too!

 

chicken soup and sides (no egg pancake!)

the missing egg pancake!

The soup came with its own sides: rice, kimchi, potato salad, and egg pancake. Actually they forgot the egg pancake and brought it later and I'm glad they did because it was very good. The kimchi was remarkably mild (which I rather liked) and the soup itself was very black peppery and felt restorative even as you ate it. It also brimmed with healthy vegetables and noodles though the chicken was of the riby-boney variety that some might struggle to want to eat.

So there we go. I think we should probably reserve judgement since the restaurant has been open less than a week. They seem to be doing pretty well so far and I wish them every success. I really liked the chicken but I can't help thinking that an option of just fried chicken without the extras might be what punters are hoping for...

outside!

inside!

The full menu...

Auckland's Pasture - a unique dining experience

PASTURE 

Cuisine: one tasting menu each season

Address: 235 Parnell Road, Parnell, Auckland  
Phone: they do not take phone calls
Website 
Drinks: bespoke drink pairings or local wines by the bottle
Reservations: essential

Dining at Pasture was an experience like no other I have had. It is certainly a restaurant like no other in New Zealand and one where you can genuinely describe your evening as an experience, not just a meal.

Chef Ed Verner and his team have won every award going, and so much about their approach is kinda mind-blowing. Consider this: they currently serve one 20 course tasting menu that changes seasonally; there are three sittings, four nights a week - 5.15pm, 7.15pm and 9pm - with a mere six people at each sitting; Pasture "cannot accommodate dietary restrictions such as vegetarian, pescatarian, no egg, or no dairy"; and it is by my reckoning the most expensive degustation menu in New Zealand.

Pasture also offers paired drinks. One was a Garage Project Beer, the only regular thing I drank all night. If you don't choose the drink pairings there is a concise and uncommon wine list.   

The restaurant specialises in fermentation, pickling, preserving, curing and baking and they like cooking over fire. Obscure and time-consuming techniques are applied to every part of the freshest and rarest ingredients, nose to tail, root to flower.

Starting in the bar...

But what feels most unusual is that this does not take place in a reverential white table-clothed setting with hushed-voiced waiters. No, it all happens inside what resemble a couple of slightly dark Japanese sheds, where half a dozen chefs surprise you for a good three hours, first in the bar, then in the restaurant proper at the chef's counter, then across at a coffee table for dessert, all to an accompaniment of fairly loud eighties rock music.

With so many courses I'm mainly just going to go with a whole lot of photos to give an idea of the place. But here's how it started: the chefs welcomed us, shook our hands and seated us at a six-seater bar. Def Leppard was playing and they were already preparing food and drinks... 

...our first drink contained fresh strawberry, whisky, sake, and wasabi (Chef Verner grated the fresh wasabi in front of us - it came in handy later too). We were offered one stalk each of incredibly fresh chilled choy sum and white asparagus, the asparagus lightly pickled, lined with cured duck egg yolk and flowers, the choy sum dipped in elderflower vinegar with more flowers and nibs of something I forget. It was probably the best-tasting asparagus and choy sum I've ever eaten. That was a thought that occurred often during the meal. 

Then they topped up the second half of the drink with NZ bubbly, creating a totally different cocktail which went with the next two-bite snack that comprised wild strawberries and some sort of jelly (rose?) and something else all wrapped in pumpkin and a nasturtium leaf. As you can tell, this was no ordinary meal. We were on a journey through New Zealand produce...  

So, here we go. Things in italics are the drinks.

Strawberry & Nasturtium

Choy sum & white asparagus

 

Pumpkin & rose

Clos Henri, Blanc de Noir, Marlborough '16

 

Tomato 

(this is the second time in the week I had a dish just called "tomato" - the other was the sensational smoked tomato at Tauranga's Clarence Bistro. Here the chef explained that the first job each morning was to start the fire and, when it reached embers, hang the leaf-wrapped tomatoes in a sack to slowly cook over it for four hours. The pic may not look like much but the tomato tasted unbelievable!)

 

Courgette, aloe vera, almond

Distilled vegetable trim

(Distilled vegetable trim? Yep, waste veges - alcoholic, a bit like sake! It's the clear liquid in the small cups.) 

 

 

 

 

At the chef's counter...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young coconut, wasabi, salmon roe

Salted Rosé, raspberry, habanero

This was one we got to mix ourselves after they shaved on fresh coconut. The drink was the first of several where wine, this one rosé, had unexpected ingredients added.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oyster, white asparagus & mushroom

Riesling & green tomato

(Presented in an ice glass: "eat it quickly before the oysters - hidden under the mushroom - freeze & cook". Wow.)

 

Lobster Tail, fresh wasabi, verbena

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northland banana, leche de tigre

Zenkuro 'Junmai', Queenstown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Young coconut squid                                                                                                                                                      Blue Abalone, Yuzu Kosho

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mushroom trim & black pepper (it's the soup)

 

Wheat & rye sourdough, six month aged butter

Garage Project 'Heels to Jesus', Wellington

Pasture is justifiably famous for the bread which takes around four days to make. The butter, meanwhile, was incredible, tasting like a cross between blue cheese and Parmesan.  

 

 

 

Fresh cheese, summer truffle

 

Aged smoked salmon, elderflower

Momento Mori 'Fist Full of flowers', Victoria '19

 

 

                         Snapper over embers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woodfired leek

Bellbird Spring 'Aeris', Waipara '12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The steak, aged 100 days

Patrick Sullivan, 'Rain', Cabernet Franc, Pinot Gris, Victoria '19

For each menu Pasture buys a whole wagyu beast. This bit, we were told, was from the shoulder. (In the same curious echo, earlier in the week I had had 55 day aged beef at Tauranga's Clarence Bistro. Which was amazing. This was, somehow, even better. Damn.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point we relocated to some low tables at the other side of the room and the second party of six moved through from the bar to the counter. The others took the chance to practice being Instagram influencers. I kept eating.

 

 

Then there were three dessert courses...

 

Lettuce, cheese & berries

Sparkling banana bread

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuna

Sorrel & pine

BK, Pet Nat, Basket Range '20

 

Of course the tuna wasn't really tuna which was a relief from a dessert standpoint. Actually it was compressed watermelon wrapped in a leaf of some sort. The sorrel and pine involved crisp biscuits, cream and flowers and was really very groovy. As to the drink I have no memory of it whatsoever and no pics. I assume it existed...

 

And that was that. I could only get a reservation for the early session so we were in at 5.15pm and back at the hotel by 9pm, complete with our complimentary loaf of sourdough bread,  blown away by the meal, completely trashed from the cumulative effect of the drinks (do NOT plan to go out afterwards) and deliriously happy from the experience.

 

The cost - $260 p/p, drinks $180 p/p. Not cheap, but not something you'd do every day. And like those bloody credit card ads say: the experience - priceless. To finish off, here are some more pics of those chefs working their magic...  

 

Chef Ed Verner - wagyu!

Chef Ed Verner - fire!

 

 

Soup and more at Pho Vina

PHO VINA

Cuisine: Vietnamese, Asian

Address: 15 Wharf Street, Tauranga

Phone: 07-579 4443

Website: not that I can find...

Drinks: beer, house wine, Vietnamese fruit wines

Reservations: probably unnecessary

I really like Pho Vina. Go there for great soup. And Jeff.

It is an oddly mysterious restaurant. It doesn't appear to have a website. There is a Pho Vina in Auckland though I have been unable to find any connection. But go to Wharf Street and the guy in charge, named Jeff I believe, is always extremely courteous, efficient, and friendly. And they make absolutely killer stocks for their soups. 

(This lack of a website makes it tricky to find their food on-line. As a public service I took pics of the menu. They're at the bottom - click to enlarge.)

Whereas just across Wharf Street at Dumpling Delight the feel is "authentic" because of a slightly rundown funky vibe, Pho Vina is the opposite and just as "authentic" because of it, with a minimalist wooden look, clean and meticulously tidy.

But I find the greatest oddity is that they don't use any "local" descriptions on the (surprisingly small) menu. As the restaurant name suggests, one of the soups is indeed Vietnamese Beef Pho. But it's not called that. It's called Beef Noodle Soup. It's in a section called "Noodle".  If it wasn't for the picture you wouldn't know what it was. The whole menu is like that. There are eleven soups from various countries, though you really need to study the pics to work out what they are...

But don't be put off - they make specific stocks for each of them. The "pho" stock, for instance, is very different from the Wonton Soup stock. And all are simply excellent. 

The other day we popped by for lunch and it was the first time I'd seen the place open to the street. It looked good! We had...

• Pork & Prawn Fresh Rolls (2)   $6
• Fried Wontons (4)   $6
• Beef Wonton Noodle Soup     $16
• Stir-fry Beef Vermicelli    $17

 

 

 

 

 

The fresh rolls rock! Rice paper-wrapped, big prawns, tangy dipping sauce - fine value for $6. The wontons were also better than most examples, tasty filling and cooked right. And the soup was, as always, top notch, great stock, good ingredients, big bowl. Cohen was happy.

On the other hand, I rather screwed up with what I wanted, not realising that the stir-fried description referred to just the meat. It was a "noodle bowl", cold noodles and vegetables with stir-fried meat on top, all of which was there to mix with a jar of mildly spicy sauce (good combo!). It was fresh and refreshing but I had a hankering for stir-fried noodles so was somewhat disappointed. My own fault. 

The restaurant also does fried rices and a "Steam Boat" option, a bowl of hot stock on top of a burner, where you cook your own ingredients (though it looks more like a Japanese Shabu Shabu than a Chinese steamboat to me. I may be wrong.). A couple at a nearby table was having one and it looked pretty damn good with some impressively-sized prawns.

So, bottom line - it may look a bit straight, and the menu descriptions are somewhat minimalist, but the soups in particular are fantastic and well worth a visit for. Just watch out for their hot chilli paste. You can see it in the pic next to the soup. Jeff will warn you it is hot - do not for an instant doubt him or it will rip your throat out..       

Outside (Jeff on the left)

Inside (Jeff on the right)