Eating in New Zealand

Apart from Belgium Beer cafes (here and here), I also like to hang out at Sake bars. Not only do they serve Japanese sake (which is always easy to drink in my books), they also usually serve very tasty skewers - type of cuisine called Yakitori. In the case of Ken Yakitori bar, they are located centrally on K’ road (Karangehape road is the full name) and Anzac avenue, with the latter closer to the university student populous and the former closer to the general city populous.

In my opinion, the one of K’ road does the best skewers, as well as being fair in the portions they do bring out; whereas the Anzac ave branch tends to skimp a little on the portions. This blog will be about the K road branch :)

As I happened to meet up with a friend for a wee drink, we only ordered a few things - apart from the Unagi/eel skewer, pictured above, we also ordered their pork belly skewer, alongside a pot of Karatanba sake . The eel skewer was tender, yet slightly crispy and full of the teriyaki marinade flavor that is the trademark of Japanese cuisine, and the pork belly skewer was equally good, with a slight hint of tanginess from the plum sauce they pasted on the meat while grilling. Karatanba, being a dry sake, was very easy to drink with strong-ish fermented rice overtones. I always have my sake cold because when you heat sake, the unique flavors are destroyed unto their common denominator and what you essentially have is no different from any other sake… well, that’s what I’ve read somewhere anyways when I did my research into sake for the purposes of, uh, drinking and buying a good bottle of sake :) I will blog about sake another time when I tidy up my notes in the next few weeks!

For a Friday night gathering that is more focused on food than having a pint with friends, look no further than Japanese yakitori and sake bars. Though some are more drink-oriented, most serve some sort of food and it is slightly different from the traditional Japanese cuisine that is usually offered in sit-down restaurants. Go ahead and try one next weekend if you haven’t, you just might be pleasantly surprised!

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