La Porchetta

La Porchetta
51-61 Hobson Street, Auckland City
ph: (09) 362 0626

La Porchetta is an Italian restaurant founded by Australian brothers in the 1980s. It's well known in Australia and New Zealand for their cheesy TV adverts with smiling, happy families laughing over pasta and pizza. I'd have to admit it was the adverts that actually drew me into craving Italian food, as I had decided that La Porchetta was the next place to stake out and see for myself whether it would put a smile on my face. It turns out that in fact it did quite the opposite.

The place was quite cozy, warm and inviting. We were welcomed warmly by the friendly staff at La Porchetta. The seats were quite cushy and comfortable. I was tucked in 'snug as a bug'. My friend and I started off with light refreshments; a few glasses of coca-cola and orange juice. The menu that we had to choose from had a huge variety of pizza and pasta dishes, even some steak and chicken dishes. However, the menu was a bit disorganized as we both had a hard time finding the entree and pasta dishes. It took almost 10 minutes just to decide our dishes due to the confused, disorganized menu. The waitresses were helpful and attentive. They regularly zipped to and fro to see if we were ready to order, or if we wanted more refreshments and they even helped us with the menu. After much looking around, I ordered the mushroom fettuccine and my friend ordered the mushroom risotto. Yeah, we both love mushroom. However, the dishes were far too overpriced! The mushroom fettuccine was $14.60, while the mushroom risotto was a ridiculous $17.10.

As we waited for our food to arrive, the waitresses continued to come around to ask if we wanted anything else. This is exceptional service, they definitely made us feel very welcome and they made us feel comfortable. They weren't just trying to make us feel that way; they were constantly going around doing their best to make the other diners feel comfortable too.
It only took 14 minutes to get both our dishes out. The food came out a bit too quickly, good risotto should take about 20-30 minutes to make. Our dishes came out looking fabulous and well garnished with finely chopped parsley. Both dishes looked absolutely well garnished and we just couldn't wait to get started, my only concern was that the mushroom fettuccine sauce looked too dilute and runny, and I could not find a hint of grated cheese or parmesan on the top. Also, for its price, there wasn’t a lot on the plate. If one is to set their dishes at a high price, one should have a hugely generous amount on the dish and/or prepare the dish to a high quality standard.

My expectations of the dish were high as it looked great, but one bite and I was sharply and immediately disillusioned. The first thing that I noticed was that my fettuccine was far too overcooked, immediately afterwards I realized that the entire dish was bland and flavourless. Everything in this dish went wrong! The pasta was ridiculously overcooked, there was no flavour, the dish was bland and unseasoned, it was overly greasy and so boring… it was essentially flavourless heart attack on a plate; I could have diabetes tomorrow for all I know!
I know that many New Zealanders like their pasta slightly overcooked, but the pasta cooked at La Porchetta was just far too overcooked; I could very much have just mashed up the pasta and make it resemble mashed potatoes. All pasta should be cooked to al dente (firm, but not hard). Making mushroom fettuccine is not hard! I had expected much better. A good Mushroom fettuccine sauce should be thick, rich, seasoned and bursting with flavour. And to give it that ‘wow’ factor, finely grated parmesan cheese should have been sprinkled over the top to give it a cheesy tang that hits your tongue right away. La Porchetta did exactly the opposite.

My friend gave me a sample of his mushroom risotto. I was expecting it to have tasted much better than my tasteless and boring mushroom fettuccine I put a large folk-full of risotto in my mouth only to be… disappointed. It was essentially the same texture and taste. The rice was far too overcooked, tasteless, flavourless, and way too greasy. My friend said that it was basically like eating butter. After several bites the dish would make you feel sick. For a risotto dish, the alcohol (white wine) flavour and the flavour of the cheese was absent. The white wine is essential to a risotto and also the parmesan cheese, but for this dish, none of those were present. The overcooked rice means that the chefs in the kitchen don’t know how to cook risotto properly. My guess is that when the chefs were adding the stock for the risotto, they put the stock in cold and/or they dumped all the stock in and simmered it down, whereas the proper way to cook risotto is to have heated the stock and then add it into the rice a ladleful at a time.
Honestly, the dishes were a right, real screw up.

I was basically crying while I was eating my fettuccine and crying even more while I was eating the rest of the risotto. Even though I didn’t want to eat it all, I forced it all down and crying while I was. Because the only thing I hate more than bad food is wasted food. When the cashier asked if we enjoyed our meal, I told her the truth. And for that she gave us a 25% discount. This is again great service by the staff at La Porchetta; if anything it was the heroic service of the waitresses and the cashier that stood out, not the food. If I could, I would have ‘sued the bastards’ for traumatizing me with their hideous tasting food. However, my law tutor told me that: “The claim won’t hold in court, this isn’t America.”
Some of my friends have dined there before and they have told me that they thought the food was okay. They got an earful from me telling them that they were wrong and that they had an “inferior palate”. This was soon followed by deathly glares of disbelief and the infamous ‘1000 yard stare’ as if I had come out from a warzone traumatized. And that is exactly the case; I was traumatized by their horrible food.

I applaud the excellent service at La Porchetta; it is the warm, friendly staff in the front lines doing their best to keep the customers happy that are keeping the restaurant afloat. Their slogan is: “Eat Live Love”, it should rather be: “Eat Puke & Die”.

Rating: 0.5/5

Mentatz

Mentatz

28 Lorne Street, Auckland City

ph: (09) 357 0960

I have heard many great things about Mentatz; a Japanese noodle bar with a reputation of serving authentic, heartwarming Japanese ramen dishes at an affordable price. I first heard about Mentatz when an old friend of mine highly recommended me to dine there and that I would find Mentatz to be “flawless and perfect in every way.”

The fame of Mentatz’s dishes spread through word of mouth like a virus as friends and family continued to talk about Mentatz as if it were the best thing there ever was, is and always will be. The University of Auckland restaurant reviewer for Craccum (May-Lee Wong) gave Mentatz an admirable overall score of 4/5. To see what all the hype was all about, I decided to go there with a friend and find out for myself whether Mentatz really is as good as people say it is.

At first glance, we could not find the food hygiene grade. When we asked the waitress, she did not seem to understand what we were asking. After asking several times, we gave up and we had to call for another waiter. Mentatz should employ people that have a strong command of the English language even at a basic level, so this was downright disappointing. Thankfully we found the food hygiene grade and it was a B.

The interior of Mentatz itself was dark, dim and ugly, my friend and I decided to sit at the front where it is closer to the windows and much brighter. The walls inside were badly decorated as if primary school kids had been hired to decorate it for them. They might as well had no bothered as it just makes the place look ugly and cold, a good restaurant should feel warm and inviting.

There was music playing the whole time, this created a relaxing vibe about the place amongst other diners and it dulled down the constant noise coming from the restaurant kitchen. However Western music actually killed the authenticity of Mentatz being a Japanese restaurant, they should have instead played traditional Japanese music to give an authentic feel to the place as well as creating a relaxing atmosphere.

The menu was extensive and besides ramen dishes there was also other dishes too choose from such as gyoza and donburi. The Craccum restaurant reviewer (May-Lee Wong) talked up the famous Tonkotsu ramen ($9.00), so I decided that I would also try to see if it really did live up to my expectations, my friend had ordered the spicy dry ramen ($9.00). The Tonkotsu ramen is a type of ramen that has a thick broth made from boiling crushed pork bones for several hours with springy Chinese style wheat noodles bathed in the thick broth. Once the order was taken we started the stop watch. I saw that we had received disposable wooden chopsticks. This seemed unfitting for a restaurant with a great reputation and would expect nothing less than quality eating utensils, not cheap, disposable chopsticks.

As we looked around there were only a handful of diners, it was almost an empty house. To our shock, people that came in after us were served before were. This is just purely bad etiquette as the first ones in should be the first ones served. To add salt to our wound, we received our dishes 18 unacceptable minutes later; given that there were only a handful of diners and that the broth and noodles were presumably pre-prepared, 18 minutes just to get one dish out is absurdly unacceptable. If the entire place was packed with diners then 18 minutes is fair enough. I had received my dish first while my friend got his only minutes later. This is also bad etiquette as we should have both been served at the same time or at least in quick succession. Putting aside the service and the venue, it is the food that made Mentatz famous for dishing out bowl after bowl of hearty, soul-soothing ramen, and for $9.00 the Tonkotsu ramen was a generous looking dish.

 Accompanying the Tonkotsu ramen were black fungus, nori (a type of seaweed), cabbage, fried shallots, a sliced half of a hard boiled egg, a slice of broiled pork and bamboo shoots finally topped off with freshly diced spring onion. One slurp told me that the noodles were old, pre-prepared, low quality noodles. They weren’t springy or elastic; it should have had somewhat a stretch to it rather than just break off and fall apart. The noodles also did not have that freshness to it and a batch of noodles was clumped up at the bottom showing that they were stored for a while. The broiled pork was not at all tender or succulent; it was dry and chewy even though it was coated in the ramen broth. The black fungus was not as crunchy as I had hoped it would be, but the bamboo shoots and the cabbage was cooked well. The ramen broth was absolutely rich and thick, the broth ran down my throat smoothly.

The ramen broth had some lovely flavours going on; the shallots, spring onion and the garlic all gave the broth that rich, strong flavour that May-Lee Wong was hyped up about. However, there was so much garlic in there that it actually overpowered the ramen broth making it too strong. The chefs and/or cooks should definitely ease up on the amount of garlic that they put into the broths. Also, the broth itself was far too greasy; every spoon I had felt like it was bringing me closer to a heart attack.

There was also an ingredient in there that gave the dish an unpleasant bitterness to it that I could not pick out. As I drank the broth, the initial taste would be smooth, rich and soothing and then I would bite down on something turning my whole mouth bitter, leaving a horrid aftertaste and a negative last impression.

My friend said that his spicy dry ramen was okay; the flavours were good, but the noodles let him down, it was far too salty, the fresh vegetables were soggy. So it was not bad, but not good either.

For a ramen dish to be successful both the broth and the noodles must be perfect in every way, otherwise the whole dish will be soiled in terms of flavour and texture. In this case, the ramen wheat noodles were a right, real screw up, and the ramen broth had some good flavours going on, but the broth was overpowered by the excessive amount of garlic in the dish. The dish as a whole was less than perfect making the whole dish unsatisfactory.

Does Mentatz live up to its hype? From what I have tasted: No. Mentatz seriously needs to improve its service and its dishes. I do not know why May-Lee Wong has such high praises for this particular dish and restaurant, but to me it sounds like she knows nothing about food with the exception of eating it.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a generous, hearty meal for $9.00, but for a place with a great reputation I expected better. And from what I’ve tasted so far... Mentatz is overrated, but it only just passes to get my approval.

Rating: 2.5/5

BBQ King Restaurant

BBQ King Restaurant
187-189 Queen Street, Auckland City
ph: (09) 368 5218

I have been to this restaurant 2 times with friends who said that this place was a cheap and delicious. What they really meant was that you get a lot for your buck, accompanied with complimentary chicken soup along with hot tea while you wait for your food to arrive; it just sounds like the perfect place to eat out... but is it? The first time I dined at the BBQ King Restaurant was with Chinese friends whom have both recommended the BBQ King Restaurant and a second time with an Indian friend. The last time I went there which was about 3 months ago, the food hygiene grade was a B; which was somewhat relieving knowing that roaches and rodents weren't running freely about in the kitchen. The BBQ King Restaurant's diners are mainly Chinese students looking for a cheap feed that reminds them of home.

The menu was absolutely huge, I mean there was just a ridiculous amount of dishes to choose from; ranging from BBQ dishes with rice, soups, noodle soups, fried noodles, fried rice, stir fry and many more. The price range is about $11 - 25. With the advice of my pals, I ended up ordering the crispy pork on rice which cost me $11.00. The entire house was packed and the kitchen was somewhat open for the diners to view. This meant that the BBQ King Restaurant was deafening with the roar of chefs and/or cooks, pots and pans clunking, diners chewing with their mouths wide open, waiters and waitresses yelling at chefs and vice versa, diners shouting across at one another and then more diners shouting across at one another; we could barely hear each other let alone ourselves. Being an open kitchen; the heat from the kitchen moved into the dining area and made the place smelly, hot and damp. As I looked around, the walls were covered with Chinese art and calligraphy, but no one could really notice them in the busy and excessively noisy environment. The waiters and waitresses didn't come to take our order so we had to wave them down.

The complimentary soup that we were given was warm and appetizing with shreds of chicken in them. The soup itself had basic vegetables with chicken which was enigmatically thick and rich almost like a broth. The amount of shredded chicken in the soup was generous especially given that the soup was complimentary. However, I could tell that this was a low quality soup as the ingredients were just chucked in without much preparation or thought. Vegetables such as bok choi came out whole, while pieces of chicken bones were a regular find. The vegetables should have at least been diced up into bite sized bits and the chicken should have been deboned. In terms of flavour, the soup was bland, simple seasoning could have easily solved this problem; I would have personally added salt, pepper and spring onion to take that soup to another level.
The tea which was also on the house was dilute and weak, we were barely able to taste any tea and the colour was pale yellow; we might as well have had hot water. My guess is that they reused the tea leaves instead of throwing it out and bringing in a fresh supply of tea. This tells me that the staff are either lazy, or the owner/manager is just being stingy.

Our food finally arrived about 15 minutes after ordering. My friends had ordered the satay beef fried rice which costed $10.50. When I looked at the crispy pork on rice, I had only two words to describe it: "Rip off!", but this wasn't something that I wanted to say to my friends (not that they would have been able to hear me anyway). The crispy pork on rice had about 12 small pieces of crispy, crunchy pork on a plate of rice with a piece of boiled Shanghai bok choi. It's not that they didn't give generously, but the dish itself was just way too plain and simple to sell for $11.00. There is nothing to it but to deep fry the pork, cut it up, plate it up on some rice and put a piece of boiled Shanghai bok choi on the side and... Voila! We have the famous crispy pork on rice. The dish was absolutely flavourless, the only component that had flavour was the salt lightly sprinkled over the pork, nothing else. The Shanghai bok choi was left unflavoured, it should have at least been drizzled with some sesame oil or some soy sauce. The rice was unpleasant to eat as it was way too overcooked, making the rice soggy and too soft to eat as it basically broke down in my mouth without really chewing.

Fortunately, the pork was crispy and it had a definitive 'crunch' to it, yet the pork wasn't dry and chewy, it was succulent and moist on the inside, but it came at the cost of containing a heck of a lot of grease making me feel sick after the meal. My friends were kind enough to share some of their satay beef fried rice with me; it was better in terms of generosity and sincerity, but it was disappointing in terms of flavour. It was bland and under-seasoned. I quickly made the judgement that the BBQ King Restaurant's dishes are either bland, too simple, or too overpowering.

The second time I have been to the BBQ King Restaurant was with an Indian friend, but this time we did not receive the complimentary soups. When I asked for them, they were quick to say that they had ran out. This was a complete lie as incoming Chinese diners were given bowl after bowl, maybe because they thought that they could take advantage of non-Chinese customers... I wasn't in the mood to fight about it so I let it slip. As expected, my dish was overpowered with ginger and my friend's dish was bland and flavourless.
However, this time the tea was much stronger than before and we could even get refills.

This restaurant's business model is a classic example of quantity over quality; keep it simple, sell a lot at a low price by giving the diners a lot for their buck yet keeping the dishes at a satisfactory level and give the customers an incentive to come back. I have to admit, BBQ King Restaurant did give you a fair amount of food for your buck in terms of quantity, but their dishes were a down right failed screw up in terms of the quality of the dishes; especially the seasoning. I would still argue that there are many places in the city that have cheaper food and the dishes taste much better, but I know that Chinese students come here because it's cheap, you get a lot for your money and it reminds them of home; and I respect that. However, as a critic I would prefer quality over quantity, and the BBQ King Restaurant only just passes by a thread to get my reluctant thumbs up.

Rating: 2.5/5

Sheinkin café

Sheinkin cafe
3 Lorne Street, Auckland
Ph: (09) 303 4301

This is the first time I've ever been to the Sheinkin cafe; in fact I've never even heard of it before. It was just randomly picked as my friend and I were looking about for a place to dine. Tucked smugly near the edge of Lorne St, I picked the Sheinkin cafe because I was simply sick of eating cheap Asian food and junk like chips, chocolate, pies, etc. Unlike the places where I normally dine, Sheinkin was 2 times more expensive, but I was willing to try anything on their menu. The hardest part in itself was picking one dish out of a whole variety of dishes; this took me about 7 minutes to decide, and I eventually chose the eggs benedict with bacon ($15.50).

To my great comfort the food hygiene was an A grade, unlike one place I dined at about a year ago which had an abysmal food hygiene grade of D. Some of the tables needed to be thoroughly wiped down, many of the tables were wobbly and everyone was crammed together like a pack of sardines - if I wanted to, I could have easily reached out with my fork and stole a bite of someone elses fish fillet without leaning over. The surroundings were plain and white; nothing special. The atmosphere inside was unpleasant, it was hot, noisy and crammed, so my friend and I decided to take a table outside, and much to our dismay the tables outside had much more 'wobble' than the ones inside. The service was exceptional, the waitress was attentive yet not intrusive; regularly visiting us to see if we were enjoying our meal. And I had the honour of having the chef personally handing me the eggs benedict with bacon in less than 10 minutes with a big, bright smile and the words "enjoy your meal".

To my surprise, the dish I had in front of me was a generous serving; 2 large pieces of toasted bagels, fresh vegetables of shaved carrot, lettuce, rockets and red cabbage, 2 pieces of shoulder bacon, 2 poached eggs covered in creamy hollandaise sauce, seasoned with various spices and garnished with small slices of fresh chives.
It is often said that we eat with our eyes first, this certainly was the case with the eggs benedict with bacon that I was presented with. Many onlookers walking past were staring at it wishing that they were in my position. One big bite gave me two words to describe this dish; perfectly balanced.

The hollandaise sauce had the correct proportion; there wasn't too much, or too little. The common mistake that many cooks and chefs make when making the hollandaise is that they make it either too sour giving it an unpleasant taste, or too creamy, making the sauce bland and tasteless; the hollandaise on my eggs benedict with bacon was at the right balance - the sourness added a punch to the flavour, the creaminess made the dish smooth and savouring. The eggs were perfectly poached; neither underdone, nor overdone, as I stabbed my knife in the egg the yolk came oozing out like thick, sticky lava waiting to be tasted. The bacon was not undercooked, nor was it overcooked which would make the shoulder bacon dry and feel somewhat leather-like in the mouth. The dish as a whole was not too salty, and not too bland; instead of salting the dish, the chef(s) actually added to the flavours by lightly sprinkling pepper and other spices. The creaminess and greasiness of the bacon and hollandaise sauce was neutralised by the fresh vegetables added with the dish.

However, the one downside to the dish was the toasted bread. The bread was slightly underdone and plainly toasted. This made the bread chewy and difficult to eat, also difficult to slice up with the folk and knife, the wobbly tables didn't help in the slightest either; I probably spent most of the time trying to cut away at the bread. This could have been avoided simply by toasting the bread a bit longer, making it more crunchy and easier to cut up. I personally would have pan fried the bread in a little bit of butter. Many people don't know that when eating, crunching sounds stimulates the appetite making food more enjoyable, I got crunches coming from the fresh vegetables, but they would be nowhere near as satisfying as the crunch you would get from things such as toasted bread.

The average person would have come out feeling absolutely stuffed. However, being an insanely massive eater I could have had two plates before feeling full - don't let this put you off going there, I am after all a bloody massive eater; I once gobbled down 12 big Ben's mince and cheese pies all within an hour.
To those of you who have never been to the Sheinkin cafe/restaurant before, I highly recommend you to dine there, or at least try the eggs benedict with bacon. It may be pricey and its wobbly tables and its bad atmosphere may have prevented it from receiving a perfect score, but the near perfection if its dishes will help you overlook those problems and have you coming back hungry for more. I know for sure that I'm coming back.

Rating: 4/5