New Zealand Report: Depot Eatery, Auckland

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Today I return to writing my NZ dining series with a review of Depot Eatery, already an Auckland favourite just two years after it was opened in 2011 by Al Brown. Having seen the rave reviews of Depot everywhere, it quickly made my shortlist of places to try. Sure enough, it didn't disappoint - my mum and I loved it so much that we ended up eating here twice during our long weekend getaway.

Depot is buzzing on any given night and its popularity is evident just by looking at the happy crowd inside and the people waiting outside for a table. We were lucky to get seats fairly quickly on both visits, perhaps due to our party size being just two. Seating throughout is bar-style and relaxed, with elevated bar chairs and tables, and they've thoughtfully included bag hooks next to most seats. There is also seating at the bar itself, where you can admire the booze collection on the racks above you while ordering your tipple and food from the super friendly bartenders.

The menu, presented to us by our waitress as a large folded-up sheet of paper in keeping with the chilled-out vibe of Depot (and no doubt because they constantly rotate their offerings), is divided into sections for oysters, small share plates, large share plates, sides, and drinks. Both nights, we ordered a jug of NZ cider to sip as we deliberated on our choices.

New Zealand Report: Vaniyé (Vaniye), Parnell, Auckland

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Earlier this year, my mum and I visited New Zealand properly for the first time (airport transits don't count as visits!) with a long weekend getaway to Auckland. I know, I know...some of you out there might scratch your heads at the idea of just visiting Auckland. However, (a) I only had a few days' time - not enough to do the whole South Island thing, (b) the flights worked out cheapest, and (c) I have a mate in Auckland, who did a fantastic job showing me his city. And of course, NZ has an excellent reputation when it comes to wining and dining no matter which city you visit. As such, I thought it would be fun to do a miniseries of blog posts to share some of my musings and dining thoughts from my journey. To whet your appetite, here's my favourite photo from my trip:

The view from Devonport towards Auckland CBD

High Tea Report: Grand Hyatt Hotel Melbourne

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All my friends know what a high tea fiend I am. I will never turn down a high tea invitation...maybe it's the excuse to glam up and make full use of my overflowing designer wardrobe? Maybe it's the cute, bite-sized food on offer? I reckon it's both. And of course, I'm always on the lookout for high tea institutions which look after both meateaters and vegetarians well! My latest tea venture brought me and two girls to the Grand Hyatt because it was the only one which suited our schedules that day. It pains me to have to write a negative review, but unfortunately I wasn't too impressed by it. Read on to find out why...

Having settled ourselves into the plush lounge-style dining room - the interior design gets a big thumbs-up from me (see photo below) - we started off with a three-tiered stand of sandwiches and cakes. I'd forgotten to tell them about my dietary requirement when making the booking, but nonetheless there were enough egg sandwiches to keep me satisfied. Quality-wise, the sandwiches weren't overly impressive - no better than what I could have made at home. The cakes were pretty decent, but were of the kind of quality you'd expect from a plain jane suburban café, not a five-star hotel high tea.

(Photo credit: The Grand Hyatt Melbourne)

On weekdays the Hyatt high tea includes a small buffet, which we started "working on" once we were done with the tier stand of food. There was only one vegetarian option, a mini-wrap, which I found pretty crudely made. It wasn't well wrapped, which meant that it easily fell apart once I tried to eat it, and it too fell below my expectations, with a thick chunk of capsicum and some greens. What really ruined it for me though, was the random slosh of spicy, supermarket-quality, salsa-style sauce which just did not make sense with the ingredients and completely spiced out my taste buds. I ultimately resorted to taking a few bruschetta, removing the salami and just eating them with the veg-friendly ingredients. As for the sweets, they weren't much of an improvement either - most of them consisted of the same bad generic crust (refer to my photo) with various crème fillings. For example, my friends commented that the mandarin-white chocolate one was a "weird" flavour combination which did not work well together. There were also various other sweets on offer, for example cakes, ice cream and toppings, and chocolate fondue, but these were similarly of very plain quality.

At $35 a head, the weekday Grand Hyatt high tea is quite cheap by Melbourne high tea standards which is a plus, but in my humble opinion the quality of the food is reflected in that. It wasn't "unacceptably bad" as such, but it was very, very ordinary as you can tell from my descriptions above. Coming to a five-star hotel for high tea, I expected a certain quality of offering, which just wasn't what I got. To their credit, the dining area is really lovely as I mentioned before, and service was friendly. However, in the end it is the food which truly makes or breaks an institution and in my opinion, I would rather pay a little more to be rewarded with something of much better quality. Look out for my upcoming high tea reviews to see my recommendations!

Rating: C

Vegetarian Friendliness: 5/10
Price Range: $$$

 

The Collins Kitchen @ Grand Hyatt Melbourne

123 Collins St, Melbourne

VIC 3000

AUSTRALIA
 

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Budapest Restaurant & Palinka Bar, Elsternwick

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Ah, Budapest! What memories...right up there as one of my top 10 favourite cities in the world, a restaurant named in its honour and serving up Hungarian cuisine was sure to grab my attention. I've now dined here twice. And you know you've come to the right place when the whole table behind you is speaking Hungarian...

As an entrée before my review, let me share one of my many travel photos of Budapest the magnificent city, in all its free-spirited glory:

Anyway, on to Budapest the restaurant and what it has in store for vegicureans. Huge portions, for one, are not just reserved for meat-eaters at this place! And the good news is, they've taken specific care to include vegetarian options in most sections of the menu. By the way, please excuse the photos - the restaurant lighting made it really tough to get better photos.

We started with a round of drinks: apple pálinka for my friends, and imported Hungarian peach juice for me. Good peach juice is one thing I really miss about Europe!

Knowing that the portions are as big as they are, we passed on entrees and went straight for the mains. My friends chose schnitzels, while I ordered the same thing I got the first time I ate here: crumbed camembert cheese served with peasant potatoes, csiki sauce and braised red cabbage. The deal is that you can add an extra side to any main for $4, so I added nokedli (Hungarian dumplings) with paprika sauce, although as you can see in my second photo, they forgot to give me the paprika sauce until I reminded them. Again, my main dish did not fail to please; it is absolutely true to the various versions of this dish which I've enjoyed on my travels around central Europe. And, our whole table agreed that the peasant potatoes were absolutely delicious; so much better than your average boring mash!

Thoroughly bursting at the seams after mains, we nonetheless couldn't resist a sneaky (well, not so sneaky...check out the size of this thing!!) sweet finish to the meal. My friend and I split a Rákóczi cream cheese crepe served with vanilla ice cream. It was very tasty, with a perfect hint of zinginess to the cream cheese, but alas, due to the sheer size of it, we couldn't finish it! If anything, I thought there was a LOT of cream in proportion to the actual crepe, but it was definitely a very tasty dish overall.

Well done to Budapest for looking after us veggie heads despite the fact that Hungarian cuisine is traditionally very meaty. Service was a bit slow and forgetful compared to my first visit (e.g. the waitress gave us a bottle of water but forgot about water glasses until we asked after a long while, and they had to be reminded about my friends' juice order), but the staff are perfectly pleasant and friendly. Prices are a little on the above-average end, but still decent value considering the large servings. Good selection of imported tipples, the highlights being naturally the Hungarian pálinka and tokaji which are not so readily available in other restaurants.

Rating: A

Vegetarian Friendliness: 9/10
Price Range: $$

Budapest Restaurant & Palinka Bar

273 Glen Huntly Rd

Elsternwick VIC 3185

Australia

(Ph): 9530 0849

(W): www.budapest.com.au
 

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