I’ve posted a lot of photos from tourism activities during my New Zealand trip with my friend Doug Wreden so far, but I haven’t shared what we’ve eaten, which may be surprising considering how frequently I blog about food otherwise. That’s mainly because most of the food we’ve gotten has been quick stops in between being tourists, and we didn’t really go to a lot of multi-course sit-down restaurants that would warrant entire blog posts for them. Instead, I decided to collect all my food pictures and do a photo dump at the end.
(As a side note, I took all these food photos with my phone out of convenience, so they won’t be quite as high quality as those in my other restaurant recap and review blog posts where I take my actual camera to take photos.)
Being a Marriott loyalist, my hotel of choice upon arriving in Auckland was the JW Marriott Auckland. Unfortunately, they are undergoing renovations so basically every single amenity was closed, but luckily, that did mean that they were offering their rooms at fairly significant discounts and we did not have to pay regular JW prices.
Upon checking in, I often get a special welcome gift due to my Ambassador Elite status. We booked two rooms so Doug and I could each have our separate rooms, but the staff didn’t know who was going to take which room, so they put the cheese and nuts plate in Doug’s room instead. Because of that, he managed to swipe a few crackers before I managed to take a photo.
After going to SEA LIFE Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium, we walked back to Auckland’s Central Business District and stopped by The Godfather Pizza on the way.
I ordered a margherita pizza and was a bit disappointed with what I got. Usually it comes with large round cuts of tomato and fresh basil on top, but it looks like this had some sort of basil paste under the cheese instead, and the presentation wasn’t very good. Flavor-wise, it wasn’t particularly delicious; I don’t think any of the ingredients were really that high in quality, so it tasted like I was eating a bread-cheese-tomato porridge instead of a pizza.
Before we set off on our coast-to-coast walk across Auckland, we stopped by Best Ugly Bagels where I ordered a Butter Up!, which was advertised as a toasted bagel with a “lick” of butter. Instead of a lick, I received a bagel absolutely drenched in butter.
I’m usually not a fan of using an insane amount of butter or otherwise using extreme amounts of fats when cooking, but surprisingly, the Butter Up! was great. I later came to find that New Zealand butter in general seems to be pretty mild, so this went down smooth and did not leave a greasy aftertaste in my mouth. The apple, lemon, ginger, and turmeric juice was also great—it had an interesting flavor profile and was not too sweet.
As an added perk, I got to enjoy the bagel at a table-side window with a nice view of the Central Business District.
After our walk, we went to Eden Noodles on Dominion Road in Mount Eden. The noodles weren’t anything particularly special, but it was a solid dish that served as a good meal. I think I did a poor job at mixing everything together, because it got pretty spicy near the end.
For dessert, we went to Wheatz Bakery on Lorne Street in the Central Business District. I got an almond croissant and a taro waffle.
The almond croissant was good, but I especially liked the taro waffle because the waffle had medium sweetness while the taro filling had fairly mild sweetness, so they complemented each other well and allowed for the true waffle and taro flavors to shine through without being too overwhelmingly sweet.
Before we started our day at the Waitomo Glowworm Caves, we stopped by the on-site café for breakfast. Doug and I each ordered a breakfast roll, which included bacon, eggs, potatoes, and greens. The potatoes were prepared in a unique way that I hadn’t seen done in a sandwich in the United States before; I thought it was decent, but Doug did not like it.
In between the Waitomo Cave and Ruakuri Cave tours, I took a quick break at the on-site restaurant and ordered a BLT.
My favorite part of the sandwich was the bread—it was crispy on the outside and very soft on the inside. The rest of the sandwich was passable, though I think they put way too much ranch, because it sort of just tasted like a ranch sandwich with toppings of bacon, tomato, and mixed greens.
My favorite part of the meal in general was the drink. I got a bottle of apple black currant juice because I don’t really see that being sold too frequently in the United States, and it was delicious. Not only was it a flavor that I don’t get to try often, but I noticed that New Zealand beverages have substantially lower sugar in general, so the juice tasted like I was drinking actual real fruit juice, as opposed to just flavored sugar water like in the United States.
Afterwards, we stopped by the General Store Waitomo to get snacks and dinner. Doug and I shared a pizza, which hardly tasted like a pizza and was more like thin, cheesy bread.
We also each got a plate of fish and chips, which was much better than the pizza. The fish was tender, the ratio of breading to fish was reasonable, and the breading didn’t leave an excessively greasy aftertaste.
On the day we arrived in Rotorua, we went to The Fat Brother for lunch.
We got an order of Monster Nachos to share, which contained nacho chips, slow-cooked beef, meat lover’s mixed cheese, salsa, and sour cream. It lived up to its name when it came out and was comically gigantic. The nachos were surprisingly good—the cheese had a uniquely meaty flavor to it (which I imagine comes from the “mixed” aspect of it as described by the menu), and the beef was tender. The shell tasted like a healthier and less greasier version of Taco Bell’s Chalupa Supreme® shell.
We also each got a chicken sandwich. Doug ordered a “Fat Girlfriend,” which came with fried chicken, lettuce, American cheese, and signature sauce on a brioche bun. I ordered a “Fat Chick,” which came with grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, and red onion on a brioche bun. My sandwich was fine, and it tasted like a fairly average grilled chicken sandwich.
On the day of our departure from Rotorua, we stopped by Ambrosia Restaurant and Bar after checking out of our lodge. I had already eaten free breakfast at our hotel so I wasn’t too hungry, but Doug slept in and needed food.
We ordered a bread plate to share. The garlic bread was good, but everything else was fairly average.
Doug ordered some lamb as his meal, and I tried one cut of it. It was the most delicious lamb I had ever tasted. Usually in the United States, a majority of lamb’s flavor comes from the fat, and the leaner portions are generally milder. However, from the very small sample size of New Zealand lamb I tried, it seems like it is far more flavor-packed as a whole—not only in the fat, but also in the muscle as well.
After looping back around and returning to Auckland, we had dinner at Kajiken Auckland on O’Connell Street in the Central Business District. The expected 15-minute wait time for a table for two ended up being over half an hour, while it seemed like many people who arrived after us got seated first. Food service was slow and strange—we added a strawberry cheese cake for dessert, and it was the first item to come out, as if it was supposed to be an appetizer instead.
I ordered “The Original,” which was noodles with chashu, menma, nori, and scallion. I wanted to add a half soft boiled egg or two, but the ordering system they had with a QR code did not make it seem like it was possible to do so. The dish was way too salty, up to the point that if I had gotten this as takeaway instead, I would’ve rinsed off the noodles before eating them.
I got white peach cider as my beverage, which was very strong, but still had good flavor.
Doug ordered two bowls. The first was noodles with mayonnaise-flavored crab meat and fish roe, deep-fried prawn, nori, scallion, and corn. The second was tonkotsu, which came with thin noodles in pork broth topped with pork belly chashu, soft-boiled egg, menma, nori, and scallion.
And now, for the grand finale. As our final dinner in Auckland, Doug and I went to Depot Eatery.
While we were deciding what to order, we received some bread with a delicious sauce. I couldn’t tell what the sauce was, but it was as if it almost had undertones of curry without any of the pungency.
For our first appetizer, we ordered three Orongo Bay oysters and three Mahurangi oysters for NZ$6 each, and I ate two of each. All of them had clean, rich, deep oyster flavors, and I enjoyed them all.
Our second appetizer was trevally sashimi with soy syrup, wasabi peas, kewpie mayo, and basil for NZ$25. There was a little bit too much soy syrup, but otherwise, this recipe was incredible. Not only did it have a great flavor profile that I haven’t seen done before, but the contrast of texture was also very satisfying to chew.
From the charcuterie board, our next dish was wild rabbit and pork rillette with cherry relish, cornichons, and sliced baguette for NZ$24.
I’ve had rabbit a few times before, and each time, including this one, it has tasted fairly similar to turkey, regardless of how it was prepared. Doug was not a fan of this dish, so I ended up having most of it; it wasn’t my favorite either, but I still thought it was fine.
As an intermission, we got a small dish—snapper sliders with pickled lemon mayo and watercress for NZ$24.
The fish was melt-in-your-mouth good, the sauce was perfect, and the bread was incredibly soft on the inside but had the perfect amount of resistance on the outside. The flavor profile was pure, clean, and minimalistic so that there weren’t any excess tastes interfering with the core fish.
This was the best fish sandwich I have ever had in my entire life.
Our first main dish was wood-roasted Fergus’ bone marrow with parsley and shallot salad for NZ$29.
This was pretty underwhelming. One of the three bones barely had any marrow on it. The vegetables weren’t diced small enough to be able to effectively mix in with the bone marrow. We also wouldn’t have been able to even if we wanted to, because we did not receive a side bowl.
Our second main dish was Freedom Farm pork hock with apple and horseradish salsa verde and parsnip purée for NZ$45.
I tried some of the pork meat, which was much more tender than I expected. I also tried some of the pork skin, which I usually don’t like, but this dish’s pork skin had a much cleaner flavor and wasn’t gamey at all. Overall, I thought the dish was fine. Doug loved this, so I let him eat a majority of it instead.
To go along with our main entrées, we got grilled fennel with macadamia romesco and bitter greens for NZ$16. This was the only dish that I actually disliked.
We ordered two desserts. The first was a cookie with ice cream and chocolate for NZ$15.
The cookie tasted like a gourmet cookie made from high-quality ingredients, but there was such an egregious amount of chocolate on it that it completely destroyed the overall flavor profile. I had a bite of it to try it out, but Doug finished the rest.
The second dessert was strawberry panna cotta topped with rice crispies for NZ$14. This was strangely sour and tasted more like raspberry than strawberry, but it was still a good sweet treat to close out the meal.
Depot Eatery was an interesting experience. Usually, there is some degree of consistency with regards to how “good” a restaurant is, i.e., the dishes are on a certain level and all share a similar style or theme of preparation. However, Depot Eatery didn’t seem to have that kind of consistency at all whatsoever, and instead, was sort of all over the place. Some dishes were orgasmically good (e.g., the snapper sliders), while others made me question whether it was edible (e.g., the grilled fennel).
I didn’t really go into New Zealand expecting world-famous cuisine like one might when traveling to a place like Japan, and New Zealand met that fairly middle-of-the-road expectation. I will remember those snapper sliders forever, but for everything else, I would say that, when averaged out, my New Zealand food experiences met my level of contentment.
