A Meal in Brief: Spring Trees New Sichuan Cuisine (早春二月), Newmarket

We came here because my parents suggested it for being cheap and tasty. After doing some web searches, I discovered the Sichuan restaurant is part of a chain which started in Beijing in 2008. The original store had a couple of trees growing through the roof of the main dining room, hence the name of the restaurant.

Entrance to Spring Trees restaurant.

The menu was huge, both in terms of the size of the pages and the number of items available. It was full of colour pictures, some taking up a whole page.

Large full colour menu with lots of pages.

The setting was new and modern. There was a dining room on the right, a series of booths on the left of the corridor, and private rooms down the back, which you can have a nosy at on the way to the bathroom. Along the way, you'll also see some food storage areas that are less tidy too. The restaurant was pretty much full, so I would recommend you make a booking.

Dining room area.

The service was fine, the usual busy Chinese restaurant experience. Our teapots were filled when empty, and we were able to order extra rice. Staff switched happily to English when we struggled with Mandarin. When we went to pay and asked for takeaway boxes, we were given a choice between free polystyrene ones, or plastic ones with a fee. (I recommend the plastic ones, not only because they are more environmentally friendly, but also because you don't want to run the risk of spilling red chilli oil everywhere.)

What we ate included:

• Nanjing-style salted duck 金陵盐水鸭 ($12) - as the name suggests, this was salty. It was also chilled, with relatively dry flesh, like tasty preserved meat.
• Mapo tofu 麻婆豆腐 ($8) - this Sichuan dish with bean curd and pork mince was really well done, and the portion size was huge for the price.

Nanjing-style salted duck and mapo tofu.

• Mixed beef and honeycomb with chilli sauce 夫妻肺片 ($10) - there didn't seem to be any honeycomb tripe here; not sure if they didn't have any or if my parents asked for just beef without me hearing. This cold dish had nice flavours, as with everything else we ate.

Beef with chilli sauce.

• Griddle cooked lotus root 干锅莲片 ($12) - there was a generous serving of lotus root pieces with little pork slices, set atop a platter with a tea light underneath. Just a little bit spicy, we enjoyed the crisp and slightly sticky nature of this dish.

Griddle cooked lotus root.

• Fried pork with cabbage 手撕包菜小炒肉 ($10) - this was less cabbage than it looks in the photo, because there was a lot of meat underneath. In hindsight, we should have ordered another dish with greens. Despite being cooked with chilli oil like many other Sichuan dishes, this was not very hot and did taste different from everything else.

Fried pork with cabbage.

• Delicious dasheen roll 香芋吐丝卷 ($5) - literally "taro toast roll", these cigars were dipped into crispy sesame at each end, and filled with a sweet taro paste. The toast part itself was not particularly crunchy, probably due to their reheating method, but can't really complain for that amount of money.

Taro toast rolls.

• White rice ($1 per bowl) - if all the dishes above seemed ridiculously cheap, the rice made up for it by being rather steep. Each bowl was tiny, maybe only three soup spoons worth. I guess they have to make their money somehow.

Overall, Spring Trees is a great choice for flavourful Sichuan food, with low prices and decent surroundings. It will be a relatively oily meal which you will want to supplement with plenty of white rice, but the dishes are skilfully cooked and well worth trying. Call ahead as this place is popular.

Restaurant Details

Spring Trees (早春二月)
100 Carlton Gore Road, Newmarket, Auckland
(09) 302 0465

According to their business card, they also have a satellite branch at Unit 13, 16 Gooch Place, Meadowland, Auckland, (09) 533 5008.

A Meal in Brief: VR Dim Sum (國慶點心)

We came here because fellow tweep Mira had called the dim sum "one of the best I've had!"

VR Dim Sum seems to be same business as VR Baker's Restaurant, with Vietnamese cuisine.

The menu was full of coloured pictures but nothing else - no descriptions, no prices. I tried asking what the black ticks on some items meant, but didn't understand the answer. Maybe they show which items cost more, or maybe a previous diner had simply marked the dishes they wanted?

Full colour pictorial menu.

The setting was unusual: ornate wooden chairs encircled covered tables in the dining part of the restaurant, while the other half of the room was a simple bakery, complete with fridges of soft drinks. It felt like we were in a different country; a ceiling fan would not have gone amiss.

Dining on one side, bakery on the other.

The service was everything we expected. Customers were greeted in Mandarin, then Cantonese, then English, until it was clear which language they preferred. Our teapot was topped up with hot water without prompting. When our dim sum was brought out, we were told that we could help ourselves to the condiments at a side table. The lady asked if we wanted our taro dumplings cut before halving them with a pair of scissors.

What we ate included:

• taro dumplings - this came out quickly and tasted fine, but was sadly only lukewarm, as is frequently the case with fried dumplings. The net-like crispy taro coating was more pronounced than usual, adding height and volume.

Taro dumplings.

• congee - this had a high ratio of meat to rice and was served with fried strips rather the dough sticks we are used to.

Congee and fried bits.

• shrimp dumpings and rice sheet rolls - the shrimp rice roll was delicious: hot and soft and fresh, served with a sweetened soy sauce. The har gow, despite also being made with shrimps and a wrapper, did not taste quite how we expected. The spinach version of the dumpling was enjoyable.

Shrimp dumplings and rice sheet rolls.

• siu mai - these were again hot and fresh, but not quite the flavour we are used to at Cantonese dim sum places.

Siu mai.

The egg tarts were not yet available when we ordered, and by the time they were ready, we were too full to sample them. They looked paler in colour than usual, which might be because other places use food colouring.

Overall, this meal was good value, with everything coming to just over $24. The food did not have exactly the same flavours we have come to expect from dim sum, but perhaps it corresponds faithfully to the Vietnamese versions of the dishes. We would come back to try the bánh mì next time, of which there were nearly 30 filling options.

Restaurant Details

VR Dim Sum (國慶點心)
15 Rangitoto Road, Papatoetoe, Auckland
(09) 2770003

A Meal in Brief: The Stall (大牌檔) (*CLOSED*)

[Added 15 March 2016: The restaurant at this location is now Legend of Noodles Cuisine 好運麵家]

We came here because the name of the restaurant (dai pai dong in Chinese) suggested we would be able to find the congee, rice and noodle dishes typical of the cheap roadside stalls that were once popular in Hong Kong. There is a lack of these little Cantonese places on Dominion Road.

The Stall is on the other side of Balmoral Road from the main cluster.

The menu indeed contained congee, rice and noodle dishes. It also had cold entrees like jellyfish, deep-fried and stir-fried meat dishes, and dim sum dishes (only available before 3pm and after 9pm for some reason). The front counter contained both Western cakes and Asian puddings.

The setting was more clean and classy than we expected. There were wooden chairs, and vertical white tiles on the walls, rather than plastic stools out in the open. Framed pictures coupled with English descriptions explained the concept of dim sum, for instance. Although a bit incongruous, there were also cakes and coffee available by the counter.

Interior of restaurant.

The service was welcoming and attentive, though it was a bit strange that we were asked if we were okay with using chopsticks. We were given a choice between hot tea or cold water when we sat down, and presented a plate of pickled daikon (the waitress called it "carrot") while we waited for our meal. Unlike most Chinese restaurants, there were shakers of salt and white pepper left on the table.

Table setting.

What we ate included:

• the aforementioned cold pickled daikon sticks (free) - these were crisp, sweet and sour
• steamed rice roll with bread stick ($5.90) - the rice roll was soft and fresh, but was missing the the fried bread stick promised on the menu. The sauces were the usual sweet and nutty ones, but included a bit of sweet chilli on one corner of the bowl, and we were also given a jug of soy sauce on the side.

Steamed rice roll which was supposed to have a bread stick inside.

• steamed seasonal vegetable ($6.00) - this turned out to be spinach, thoughtfully cut into bite-sized lengths. It was topped with minced garlic and stewed pork. Pretty good, though we didn't expect the toppings, which had the aroma of five spice.

Steamed seasonal vegetable.

• beef hor fun ($11.50) - this was hot and delicious, minus the smoky burnt oil flavour you sometimes get, so it's probably better for you too. This was our favourite dish. More places should sprinkle sesame seeds on their food.

Beef hor fun.

• preserved egg and lean pork congee ($8.50) - we needed to add plenty of salt and white pepper to this, but after that we could taste the ginger and other ingredients. The flavour was good after adjustment, but the texture was not quite right: a bit lumpy like they had tried to blend leftover rice into it.

Preserved egg and lean pork congee.

Overall, the food was slightly different from our pre-conceived notions of what Cantonese food should be like, but it was fresh and tasty. Our entire meal came to $31.90, so they clearly didn't charge us for the tea, daikon, or takeaway boxes (which were supposed to be 20 cents each).

I do wonder who their target market is: on the one hand, there are signs in Chinese only; on the other, they cater to people new to the cuisine with the explanations on the wall. Then there is the coffee shop aspect, with Hӧpt soda in the fridge, along with the cake and coffee.

Anyway, it is good to see something around which doesn't offer the same dumplings and noodles as is prevalent in that part of Dominion Road. I would be tempted to return to try their double skin milk custard and similar items too.

Restaurant Details

The Stall (大牌檔)
465 Dominion Road, Mount Eden, Auckland
(09) 631 7546
ekitchenlimited@gmail.com

Review: Sun World Chinese Restaurant (新世界海鲜酒家)

According to the Cuisine Magazine, Sun World was one of the first places in Auckland to offer yum cha. It is certainly still very popular, with queues going out the door during the busy weekend yum cha rush. As a Chinese seafood restaurant, it also has an excellent a la carte menu, and plenty of live seafood for you to look at while you wait, from lobsters to paua (abalone) to geoduck to clams.

Kids checking out the lobsters by the front door.

The restaurant's Chinese name 新世界 actually translates to "new world", but the word "new" in Cantonese is pronounced "sun", and presumably they didn't want to call themselves "New World" to avoid confusion with the supermarket chain. It has apparently been in Newmarket since 2000, and every time I go I wonder what used to be there before that, because the Roman gladiators on the side glass doors don't seem entirely in theme.

Roman gladiators on the side doors.

Yum Cha

The restaurant's website says that they have been offering yum cha since 2007 (fellow blogger Her Worldly Pleasures has documented some dishes from this time). Perhaps that is true for their Newmarket location, but friends remember having yum cha at Sun World when it was still in town, and yum cha has been available in Auckland for at least 25 years, if memories serve correctly.

At Sun World, as with most restaurants of this type in Auckland, yum cha is still offered in the traditional way, with someone pushing trolleys or carrying trays around, although you can, of course, also order a dish rather than waiting for it to appear.

Trolleys with a variety of dishes, from dumplings to spare ribs.

We found the options at Sun World to be varied and plentiful, so it was easy to select different dishes without waiting a long time for what you want. All the usual delicacies were available, including the various steamed dumplings, congee, ricesheet rolls, pork spare ribs, turnip/taro cake, and BBQ pork buns. For dessert, there was also plenty to choose from, such as egg tarts, jin deui (fried sesame balls), various buns and bak tong gou (steamed "white sugar cake").

Yum cha favourites including siu mai, pork spare ribs, chicken feet, and chicken tail buns.

The food was fresh and tasty, and even when we picked the special (more expensive) dishes like deep fried crab or vegetables in oyster sauce, the bill came to a surprisingly small number. Sun World definitely offers one of the best yum cha experiences in Auckland!

Steamed things, fried things, baked pastries - all are available and delicious.

The only reason we don't eat here as often as we would like is that the place is almost too popular. The crush of people and the long queues can be off-putting. Sometimes the waiters are so rushed that they forget to bring your tea, or you find that you have to wait for some time before you get all your crockery. But hey, it is all part of the fun, and did I mention that the food is good?

Dinner

Dinner at Sun World is less frantic than the lunchtime yum cha sessions, so you will have better service and a more relaxing atmosphere to go with the excellent cooking.

Free range chicken with garlic ginger paste.

As with all Chinese restaurants that are not cheapie eateries, you should go with a group and order a variety of dishes so that you can share a balanced meal. (It sounds ridiculous saying this, but one knowledgeable person should do the ordering. I have seen customers unfamiliar with the cuisine attempt to get each person to pick something they like, and it always ends in disaster, even if there are no duplicate dishes, e.g. no one orders vegetables. In case of doubt, ask the waiter for advice.)

Stuffed tofu.

The menu is large, but everything we tried was of a high standard, both well-presented as well as having great authentic flavours.

Steamed fish and roast meat.

Sun World is a popular institution in Auckland with good reason!

Restaurant Details

Sun World Chinese Restaurant (新世界海鲜酒家)
2A York Street, Newmarket, Auckland
(09) 520 3218

Opening hours:
Mondays to Fridays 11am - 2:30pm, 5:30 - 10pm
Saturdays to Sundays 10:30am - 2:30pm, 5:30 - 10pm

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Review: Golden Steamboat (鍋色天香)

Now that the cold weather is truly upon us, I often have a craving for something hot and soupy. And if you want to connect with family and friends rather than hibernating for winter, there is no better meal to have than a Chinese steamboat experience.

Chinese steamboat.

It ticks all the boxes really. Also known as a hot pot, a steamboat meal starts with a large simmering pot of stock in the middle of the table, and you cook your food in it yourselves. You are allowed to be loud and raucous, the young ones can play with their food, the grandparents can warm their achy bones and boil their portions to mush so they don't need to chew, and everyone gets to pick and choose, not only what they put into the soup base for cooking, but also how long it is cooked for, and with what sauces it is flavoured afterwards. It is conducive to conversation, because everyone is interacting constantly, with food arriving at the table, being dropped into the pot, and being scooped out again, being passed around, dipped in sauce, eaten. You can revel in a hive of activity.

There are plenty of steamboat restaurants in Auckland, but the one we have been going to is Golden Steamboat, upstairs in the middle of that strip of restaurants on Dominion Road in Balmoral. You want to go with a group of people, because that all-important pot of stock is going to set you back about $20 already. After that, though, it is all too easy to keep adding to your order, with a plate of meat balls for $4, meat slices for $6 - $8, vegetables for around $3, herbs and bowls of dipping sauces for $1 or $2, and cooked food like fried dumplings for $7.

There are a good number of soup bases to choose from, and you can also have half-and-half, which we like to do, to cater for spice lovers and heat-avoiders alike, or meat-eaters and vegetarians, as the situation arises. The vegetarian mushroom soup base seems to hold a special status. If you order this for your stockpot, a staff member will ladle out a bowl for each person at the table as an appetiser. And it makes sense too, to savour these beautiful fresh mushrooms before their delicate flavour is submerged in everything else you throw into the pot.

Mushroom soup base, served before the stock is polluted with other food.

Then the frenzy begins! One by one, your orders come out, until there is no space left at the table. The staff will refill your pot when the liquid begins to run low, but otherwise, you are now in charge of your own dinner.

Prawn paste and beef slices, on the side as there was no room on the main table.

Fresh whole fish, and various sauces.

Wheat glutem balls.

I like to drink the soup from the pot, but if you are still thirsty, there is not only Chinese beer and wine available, but also a wide variety of fresh juices (diluted with water, the way I like it). For $5 - $8, you can have not just a glass, but a whole jug!

Kiwifruit, grapefruit and pomegranate juices.

The food at Golden Steamboat is fresh and varied, and it's great fun to have a hands-on dining experience. With nearly everything simply simmered, it is both healthy and very reasonably priced, and your meal is never cold!

Panda Recommends

The important thing here is variety. Don't get three different types of meat balls; try to order something from each section. The exception is the vermicelli. You will probably be too full to eat any starch, and you can always order the noodles afterwards if you find you are still hungry.

Vegie Pandas
Who would have thought you can safely share a meal with friends without ordering something just for yourself? Here, you can have half a pot of the mushroom soup base, and cook in it any number of things, including six different types of tofu, four varieties of mushroom, and an assortment of Chinese vegies, from lotus root to tong ho (if you have not had garland chrysanthemum before, be aware it has a pungent flavour). Warning: Do not eat the Golden Steamboat Special Sauce—it has meat in it. And the mushroom dumplings in the meatballs section is there for a reason—it is basically a fish ball with a mushroom filling.

Menu - English

Menu - Chinese

Restaurant Details

Golden Steamboat (鍋色天香)
Level 2, 551 Dominion Road, Balmoral, Auckland
(09) 638 8268

Opening hours:
Mondays to Sundays 5:30 - 11pm

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Review: Chinese Apple in Hot Toffee (拔丝苹果) @ New Flavour Restaurant (新源风味食府)

Northern style Chinese dumplings seem to be all the rage these days.  And notwithstanding Al Brown's endorsement of Barilla Dumpling on Dominion Road, one of the places where people get their fill is another little eatery down the road called New Flavour.  Since Natalie Smith wrote about the place on the Eat Here Now website nearly two years ago, a number of other bloggers have picked up the cry, including Her Worldy Pleasures, Andrea at Dlish, and Nessie at Baking Equals Love.  Even the vegans love the place.  Not surprisingly, if you turn up at dinner time, chances are now pretty slim that you will find a seat without waiting.  The fact that the eatery was shut down earlier this year after receiving an E food grade rating (it has since cleaned up its act and is now rated A) didn't diminish people's enthusiasm at all.

The other bloggers have done a great job of raving about the dumplings, handmade ("manual") noodles and vegetables at New Flavour already, so I won't carry on about the savoury dishes you can have there.  What I would like to share is a sweet snack I have not seen at many other places in Auckland: apple fritters coated in hot toffee (拔絲蘋果/拔丝苹果), served with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and a bowl of water so you can cool the molten sugar, turning it hard and crispy.

Apple in hot toffee

Unlike the Western toffee apples on a stick, you don't need to strain your jaw trying to eat this dish.  You do, however, need to eat quickly, savouring the warm, soft interior and the sweet, crunchy exterior of each mouthful, before the toffee coating the battered apple pieces loses its heat and sticks onto the plate in one giant clump.

New Flavour also offers banana and kumara chunks in hot toffee, the latter simply deep-fried without a batter, but we prefer the candied apple, because we are usually so full by the time we get to dessert that we find it difficult to handle the thought of something as heavy as sweet potato.  These other options are delicious too though.

Kumara in hot toffee

If you want to try making this at home, there are a bunch of recipes online:

• Candied Apple Slices
• Apples in Spun Syrup
• Chinese Toffee Apples
• Sugar Coated Sweet Potatoes

But I'd rather enjoy myself and leave it to the experts.

Panda Recommends

New Flavour has a very large menu, and we have yet to try even half the items in it.
Mains: dumplings, noodles and vegetables
Dessert: apple in hot toffee ($16).  We wanted to try the deep fried milk too, but they didn't have it the two times we asked.

Vegie Pandas
As above.

Restaurant Details

New Flavour Restaurant (新源风味食府)
541 Dominion Road, Balmoral, Auckland
(09) 638 6880

Opening hours:
Tuesdays closed.
Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays 5pm - 3am
Thursdays to Saturdays, 5pm - 4am

New Flavour is a basic eatery between My Kitchen (Taiwanese) and Golden Tulip (Malaysian).

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Review: Point Restaurant (葡點) *CLOSED*

[Added 8 August 2012: This eatery is now sadly closed, having been open for only around 4 months.]

It was the photo of a grilled quail which drew us in.  On this cheap and cheerful stretch of Dominion Road, dominated by noodle and dumpling places, animal organs here, rice and lentils there, this little bird seemed almost too exotic to belong.  I was sure that if we tried to order it, we would be told "sorry, we've run out".  The last place I tried to order anything interesting, I was rejected three times before I found an item I could actually have.

Modern and clean look.

Well, I have yet to be told that a dish is unavailable at Point Restaurant. This is probably because most of the offerings at this Macanese eatery consist of noodles or rice, baked or fried (or boiled, in the case of rice porridge), with a repeated selection of accompaniments such as bacalhau (Portuguese salted cod) or BBQ pork.

The fried rice here is one of its strengths, but fortunately the menu also has some non-rice or -noodle dishes.  The Deep Fried Soft Shell Crabs with Wasabi Mayo appears under the "Yummy Snack" section and was beautiful cooked, while being very affordable at $8.50.  The whole Grilled Quail was also a tasty treat.

Partially eaten: Deep Fried Soft Shell Crabs with Wasabi Mayo; Fried Rice with Combination Meat, Cashew Nuts, Pineapple and Curry.

Grilled Quail with Five Spice Salt.

Our favourite fried rice so far is the Combination Meat one pictured with the Soft Shell Crab above, but the Seafood with Tomato Sauce Fried Rice is also pretty good.  I thought it would be like a Spanish paella, but it is definitely fried rice, with less liquid and some egg fried with it.  The seafood reminded me of "Mini-Me": apart from normal mussels, prawns, and squid, it also had tiny versions of the mussels, less than 10 times the size of the regular ones, and little shrimps as well.

Seafood with Tomato Sauce Fried Rice.

We found the noodles less exciting, though we have by no means tried them all, and the Fried Udon with vegetables was not bad.

Garlic Mushrooms and Vegetables with Fried Udon.

The main weakness of Point Restaurant is that there isn't a lot of vegetables to be had.  What dishes there are, the vegies tend to be a minor ingredient, or covered in cheese, and there isn't anything I would refer to as "green leafy vegetables".  Then again, I have felt a lack of vegetables in many other restaurants, even in, say, vegetarian Indian restaurants.  I don't really have anything against cheesy bakes anyway, even the mildly curried and sweetly coconutty ones.

Steamed Mix Vegetables Baked with Cheese and Coconut Curry Sauce.

Although no one was hungry after the large portions we were served, we couldn't go past trying the Serradura for dessert.  Named after the Portuguese word for "sawdust", this pudding looked like tiramisu, but was simply whipped cream layered with biscuit crumbs, garnished with grated chocolate.  Plain, yet enjoyable.

Serradura, or Macanese "Sawdust" Pudding, made of whipped cream and biscuit crumbs.

Point Restaurant is the only eatery I know of in Auckland specialising in the Chinese-Portuguese fusion cuisine of Macau.  It doesn't have the egg tarts and meat jerky slices sold from the sides of cobbled streets, which I've come to associate with this Chinese Special Administrative Region, but it does offer a large variety of other delights such as baked rice dishes and Portuguese sausage, all without breaking the bank.

Panda Recommends

Entrees: Deep Fried Soft Shell Crabs with Wasabi Mayo ($8.50), Grilled Quail ($12.00)
Mains: Combination Meat, Cashew Nuts, Pineapple with Curry Fried Rice ($12.50), Seafood with Tomato Sauce Fried Rice ($12.50)

Vegie Pandas
Limited choice, but be aware that you can look beyond the Vegetarian section for suitable dishes.

Menu - page 1

Menu - page 2

Restaurant Details

Point Restaurant (葡點)
Unit 4, 583 Dominion Road, Balmoral, Auckland
(09) 623 4279

Opening hours:
Mondays closed.
Tuedays to Sundays 12 – 3pm, 5:30pm – 9:30pm

Point Restaurant is in the same complex as Banzai, next to Aji Ichiban.

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