We took a tour of duty around some of Auckland’s best Chinese eateries and the upshot is Two Hungry Mums quite enjoy a walking degustation of dumplings and noodles.
There’s been some discussion about how restaurants specialising in Asian cuisines are bracing for a slowdown due to the Coronavirus outbreak overseas. As far as we can tell, Dominion Rd is still humming.
We joined an Eat Auckland tour ‘Balmoral – more-than-dumplings’ along Auckland’s infamous stretch of Chinese eateries last year and around 10 others joined us, mostly families and couples. Eat Auckland has another tour coming up in March which they say is almost fully booked and there have been no cancellations. That’s a good sign.
You can’t take a tour of Duo Mei Lu Road (road with lots of beauty) without dumplings and so here we were about to get our fill. We’d joined the tour to break away from our usual haunts (everyone has their Dom Rd faves right?) and get some intel on where to eat and try some different dishes.
We took the narrow stairs to a dining room at Shaolin Kung Fu Noodles past tables laden with noodles at 3pm on a Sunday, and waited for the kitchen to deliver our first taster, snowflake dumplings. We weren’t disappointed. These dumplings are arranged in a pan with water and a flour slurry, then the lid goes on to steam and fry them together.
Pork is strictly off limits at Shaolin, so we had the lamb and fennel (hailing from the west of China where dishes are halaal according to the handy map of China’s provinces and food influences we were given) and the egg and chive dumplings. The kitchen here does mean hand-pulled noodles and we shared number 70 – a lamb and cumin concoction (but by the time the plate got to our table the noodles were scarce).
The tour is guided and we had two knowledgeable hosts explain that Barilla and New Flavour need no introduction – that’s where all the Europeans go. We had five other restaurants and two shops to hit within a kilometre stretch of Balmoral.
So on to Xi-an Food Bar we went for a Chinese style burger. Not bao, nope, something else. A new taste and texture to us, this was juicy pulled pork in a flat bread style burger bun. Jury’s out as to whether we’d choose this over the ever popular bao. The good intel about this outfit is it sells its own chilli sauce and the number 37 dish (noodles with pulled pork) is a firm favourite.
We came across Eat Auckland tours on Facebook and were impressed with their scope – they do four regularly covering Sandringham’s Indian eateries and spice shops, Korean food, a sweet degustation, and Ponsonby Rd. Eat Auckland says the city is “developing into eclectic neighbourhoods each with their unique flavour” and we’d have to agree.
Across the road and our next stop was Spicy House where we tried a few tasty tofu dishes, then wandered into Tekkoon Tea Shop, a family run business that imports tea and sells wholesale to restaurants around town. Coffee’s our go-to but we’ll be back there for some of the fragrant jasmine and rose teas. And maybe a tea pet.
The Okashi House Sweet & Snack Shop is one of those curiosity stores with a regular customer base and we are not its target clientele. Dried fruit, fish and other foreign packaged food stuffs (duck tongue anyone?) are crammed into this colourful little store. Like Marmite, it would be a welcome taste of home to those far away from home.
Speaking of Marmite, China’s answer to the Marmite and chip sandwich is served on the regular at Bun Hut. It’s a marvel. Ask for the Chinese pancake with crispy wonton and you’ll get a paper thin crepe with an egg muddled through, folded over a sauce and crispy wonton wrappers. Soft to the bite, crunchy on the inside, savoury and salty, this is every Kiwi kid’s childhood served Chinese style.
It’s hard to top such a revelation and Hulu Cat was our next stop where we stood around outside the hole-in-wall counter to try different bubble teas. We’d often seen the lengthy queues outside but were bubble tea virgins. And now we know why because even served with quarter of the sugar, they were a sugar coma and not a coffee drinker’s cup of tea.
After a quick stop at Yoyoso, aka the Haus of Crap, we ended our tour at Flavour House where the Shanghai style dumplings were delicious, even though they looked suspiciously like little bums. We topped it off with kumara wedges dunked in sugar syrup which we dipped in water to break the strands. Definitely not a Kiwi way to eat kumara but tasty nonetheless.
There’s nothing better than a buddy who’ll accompany you on an afternoon of eating and we recommend supporting the eateries on Dominion Rd so they don’t have to worry about a slowdown.
Eat Auckland
