Eating in New Zealand

It was on a whim that I visited this restaurant with my friend for a dinner tonight, as it was already past 9 and we haven’t had anything to eat since our large-ish lunch (which suited us just fine until we started walking around the city!). Heading into the viaduct, where eateries fortunately do not usually close till late, we began looking at the menus lined up alongside the pedestrian walkway.The packed out porch of Soul attracted our attention and so we walked in to see what they offer!

Turned out that one of the special dishes that they do is the seafood platter for two, which consists of thai green curry mussels, roasted hapuka, pan-fried squid, deep fried salmon fillets, whitebait fritters, and seafood sauce. We thought we may as well try it out, does sound pretty nice! We were also fairly confident that, like the mains, it probably won’t have a large portion because platters are usually just to taste and snack on, not to fill.

At $87.50, the portion they served was a little under the mark, but most of the items on the platter were classy indeed. The roasted hapuka was slightly crispy but succulent with a slight buttery taste inside. They way they’ve prepared the fish must’ve required very fresh fish - and we could definitely taste the freshness here. The whitebait fritter, compared to the one we’ve had just a few days ago (will appear in future blog posts ;) is very very nice. The fritter was more akin to a pancake texture, with the whitebait and seasoning blending well together. A slight squeeze of lemon here really helped us to taste the different ingredients within the fritter! I didn’t know lemon juice tasted so good…
The squid was also very fresh, creamy to taste and easy to cut into - which means they’ve cooked it right - with the slight batter giving it an oily aroma. It tasted even better when combined with the seafood sauce, which is lightly tangy compared to the regular seafood sauces (like tartare sauce) with a creamy consistency. The seafood sauce also went well with the deep fried salmon fillets (the waiter had a french name for it - I couldn’t remember what it was as it was the first time hearing it! That and my terrible memory!). Fresh fish always taste good, and the fillets were definitely fresh.

The one mishap of our meal would have to be the Thai green mussels, which were extremely hard to pull apart (I was at risk of sending a few flying in the general direction of the tables of old folks sitting next to me) and didn’t taste as good as the ones I’d had at the Belgium Beer cafe. The mussels themselves were fresh but already hardened, which suggests it had been the first item done but left under the heating lamp while the rest were prepared (pure speculation - would love for chefs or cooks out there to verify this!), so it didn’t taste as soft as the freshly-steamed mussels. The Thai green curry sauce they used was light but compared to the rest of the platter, was too light and faded into the background as opposed to highlighting its presence.

Our sense of ambivalence were not only toward the mussels, but also the potato salad and mixed salad sides that came along with the platter. The mixed garden salad had a light vinaigrette and was fresh, but did not help to activate nor settle the taste buds. The flat balloon feeling was similar with the potatoes, which was just steamed with some light seasoning. I tried peppering some of it but it tasted just as bland as ever - I guess most of the thought went into the seafood part rather than the sides…!

Overall, a very pricey meal but for those who love seafood it’ll be a definite treat. The atmosphere is relaxed and the decor fairly classy (viaduct eateries are usually fairly classy looking anyway), and their menu does provide a fairly diverse offering in both the food and wine aspects. Even for me and my friend who usually prefer meat over seafood, the platter was very nice and the quality of the other items made up for whatever shortfalls they had in their sides and mussels. If you can afford fine dining, consider coming here if you’re in the neighborhood.

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!