Eating in New Zealand

It’s always hard to get a seat in the popular eateries on a Friday night, and tonight as no except; however given that one of our friends happened to have a birthday the very next day, we decided to try our luck anyway.

As I’ve blogged prior , Belgium Beer cafe is a restaurant/pub that offers not only Belgium fares but also a wide complement of Belgium beers (of which very few are available anywhere else, save for some Leffe beers that are available in the supermarkets).

Although my favourite beer is definitely Leffe Dark, I thought about trying something new and Duvel caught my eye - cited as the strongest beer in the menu, why not give it a whirl? And true to the description, the beer was a lot stronger than your average beer - the alcohol content is quite pronounced, coming off in a bitter overtone and very little sweetness compared to the other Belgium beers that I’ve had. I didn’t think too highly of it as there weren’t any other uniqueness about the Duvel apart from the alcohol level (around 9.5%, I recall).

If I experimented with my beer, I may as well experiment with the dish! As I was also feeling like a slightly substantial meal with meat, I decided to try their sirloin steak with garlic butter sauce. To my dismay, the sauce constituted of garlic butter slices that melted away to oblivion under room temperature, and the medium-rare steak was almost well done - I’m glad I am still equipped with fairly strong canines to tear through the meat, which would’ve been otherwise very hard work! The seasoning itself is average to below average, and the fries weren’t exactly crispy.

As the venue is usually packed (full house tonight!) I suspect the chefs are unable to cope with sending out the meals in a timely manner. Indeed for us, we had to wait for half an hour before the first orders trickled in, and undoubtedly some of which have been sitting under the heat lamp for a while. So readers beware, if you’re after good quality dish from this particular eatery, please visit during non-peak nights! (i.e. avoid Friday and Saturday nights). For a simple gathering of friends though, it’s no biggie; after all, its the company that makes or breaks the meal when you’re out with friends!

Although it’s rare for my family to eat at two buffet restaurants within a month, their particular cravings just proved too great to ignore and I was quite happy to tag along for the ride (and a free lunch!). And lunch today brings us to the Orbit restaurant located at the top of Skycity, the tallest building in South Pacific (I think it hasn’t yet been bested!). Unfortunately I was much too absorbed in the food itself and forgot to take a photo of the surroundings that, while familiar to me since I’ve used to see the Auckland skyline all the time from driving around the city and beyond, it may entice at least one reader who reads my blog to visit New Zealand. Wouldn’t that just be awesome ;)

Anyways, I digress. Lets move on to the dishes!

I started off with their (only) soup of the day, braised ham soup. Now if I wasn’t aware of my blogging goals that I want to achieve (which is to review at least half of the restaurants that I visit during January) I would’ve just gorged myself on this soup and forgotten about the rest. Though in retrospect that would’ve been tragic because, as I shall divulge later on, there are many other great dishes to try, the soup itself was very very nice. Filled with the aromas of smoked ham, with a slight hint of cheese and ham chunks in a creamy lentil soup, it took a lot of self restraint to treat myself to just a shallow dip of the soup…

Since there were quite a few choices in the cold section, I opted for a smattering of the ones that I thought would looked the most fresh and/or the tastiest. The marinated mushrooms with reduced baslsamic dressing was quite nice, however the pasta of the day was also a mild, yet armoatic contender for my favourite cold dish. The hams available in the cold section were passable and the garden salads should’ve been avoided because they taste like they’ve just been defrosted. The beetroot is always nice to nibble on, and the shaved beetroots they served in the cold section made nice nibbles indeed. The cold squid and cajun chicken were both…well, let’s just say I was quite glad only a bite’s worth were placed on my plate.

Starting from the roasted potatoes, they were well seasoned and well, generally nice potatoes to nibble but best avoided if you get full easily. The pasta, while fairly bland, made great accompaniment to the champagne ham that that lay at the end of the hot food section; I had mine half coated with their whole grain mustard (with seed) sauce and I must say both integrated quite well together - the tanginess that they shared in particular made two dishes that by themselves would’ve otherwise been too bland or overpowering, taste just right. The seafood friend rice is slightly hard, in the sense that the rice was slightly overcooked, with its other ingredients suffering a similar fate. Still edible though. The hake fillet wrapped in parma ham was dry and tasteless - please avoid at all costs!

I provided a close up of the scallop because it was apparently the most popular dish of the day at this restaurant. I say this because I had to wait for two refills before by chance the cook refilled the plates just before I reached the scallop’s location. And getting back to my table and taking a bite, I understood the reason why. The pumpkin puree with a thai-ish coconut curry sauce made an exciting affair with my palate - although as all affairs go, it probably wouldn’t be as good if I simply gorged myself on this. The creaminess with a touch of spice in the pumpkin puree/curry does linger for quite a while on my tongue, which overshadowed any subsequent bites I took for quite a few minutes. I’d suggest one scallop per every refill or 30 minutes would be an ideal gap of wait to help keep things (in this case, your taste buds) fresh.

Upon my 4th visit (it could’ve been the 5th, wasn’t really counting!) to the hot food platters, another waiter refilled the plates with a resupply of deep fried mussels which didn’t look half bad. It tasted decent with fresh golden breadcrumb coating and tasted fairly fresh. The chips (with unknown seasoning - I think its a pepper salt variant) were OK too, but in the end it was the second helping of champagne ham and mustard that I was looking forward to the most ;)

The cheese platter I got were fairly OK, too. The brie, cheddar, and Camembert were all decent varieties that went very well with the crackers. Personally I am not a bit fan of the wafer-crackers very much but it seemed to go well with the brie. I certainly wasn’t complaining as I polished the plate clean~

You’d expect that for the $40 per head charge Orbit is placing on its customers they better be serving decent ice cream - and indeed they are. In the ice cream section they serve five Movenpick flavors, of which I could name none other than the cookie and cream and the chocolate flavor one. Though it was nice to enjoy all these movenpick flavors all at once, I still preferred the usual method of taking a bite out of a freshly baked waffle cone alongside my serving of ice cream!

At the forefront, we have the mango pudding which was creamy and full of mango gooey-ness. Slightly rich for repeated servings but a necessary finisher to complete my meal! The ginger poached pear w/ almond milk and cream was fresh, and the caramelized almonds with the milky foam went quite well together. However my favourite dessert had to be the port wine poached figs w/ brandy pancotta. In the little jar held the few things that were dear to my heart in terms of sweet stuff - port and figs. The fact that I did have a glass of Port during this meal (will blog about this later!) made it even more significant, as my glass of port paled in comparison to the complexity of flavors in this dessert… though it’s quite unfair to do a comparison like this :) The taste may be overly sweet for some, but it hit just the right spot for me! I believe my palate may have already been well prepared by the two desserts that have already assaulted and battered my tastebuds, in particular the several balls of movenpick ice cream that I gorged on just 10 minutes prior…

Whew, that was one long restaurant review! But for the offerings that Orbit presents to its customers, it was certainly an enjoyable experience to be able to try so many different dishes that, while quality varied as one expects within a buffet environment, still adhered to a certain standard that didn’t create an ‘overkill’ eating experience. The key of moderation and understanding how one food is best accompanied or avoided in the presence of another can be a huge factor in creating a successful eating experience… or a disappointing one.

With its bird eye views accessible across most of central Auckland, Orbit restaurant is a good place to bring important guests from out of town, or those who simply places importance on the scenery as much as the food they’re enjoying. Although I’m not a big fan of buffet places, Orbit definitely warrants my return visit in the (semi) distant future!